


fast cars

by delafield



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, assassins!au, because the world needs that, becky sauerbrunn basically runs an agency of ethical vigilantes for hire, i think i intended this to be cracky but it ran away from me, the explicit bit starts halfway through ch2 and is easy to skip if that's not your thing, tobin speaks french, warning is for blood but there's nothing super graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:08:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25774132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delafield/pseuds/delafield
Summary: They meet, inevitably, because they’re too good not to.(Tobin is a contract killer. Christen is her handler. What could possibly go wrong.)
Relationships: Tobin Heath & Christen Press, Tobin Heath/Christen Press
Comments: 167
Kudos: 491





	1. I

_ You got a fast car _

_ I want a ticket to anywhere _

_ Maybe we make a deal _

_ Maybe together we can get somewhere _

They meet, inevitably, because they’re too good not to. 

Becky is conservative with the way she matches handlers and dispatchers. In their game, a solid partnership is better - safer - than a brilliant one; she’s careful to balance out strengths and weaknesses, prioritising temperamental fit over individual flair. She didn’t build the agency by setting fires she didn’t know how to control. But Christen has the highest success rate of any handler on the books, and eventually she has to ask.

‘Why do you never pair me with Heath?’

Communications with the boss are usually voice only, but it’s performance review season, which apparently justifies a rare video call from what could just conceivably be Becky’s house but looks more like a set somewhere in LA where they usually film Food Network shows. Even though they’ve already run through Christen’s stats and objectives and self- and peer-assessment and are safely into  _ do you have any questions for me  _ territory, the older woman’s eyebrows still rise in a way which reminds Christen that she used to be frighteningly senior in the special forces. ‘Why Heath?’

‘I’ve heard about her.’

‘That’s alarming, given her line of work, and what are supposed to be some extremely sturdy intra-agency Chinese walls.’

‘I haven’t been exposed to any mission specifics, but -’

‘- but Kelley was your last dispatcher, and the girl violates the confidentiality policy every time she opens her mouth. You don’t have to explain.’ Becky sits back, thoughtful. ‘It’s a reasonable question. I’m just not convinced you’d be a good pair. For Tobin, I usually pick someone a bit more…’

Christen feels herself bristle, and she folds her arms firmly on the desk to hide it. ‘More...?’

‘Adaptable.’

Having spent the previous week in Panama with Kelley, looking through her fingers as the former Olympic judoka cheerfully steamrollered over every component of Christen’s intricate mission protocol, this hurts. ‘You think I’m  _ unadaptable?’ _

‘Not in that way,’ dismisses Becky, reading her mind as usual. ‘Kelley is a loose cannon. Tobin is... She puts the world together differently. Sees options no one else does. Kelley might be chaotic, but it’s chaos you can see coming. Chaos you can  _ plan  _ for.’

Christen remembers that, later, when her plans fall down around her.

\---

Heath’s file lands in her secure drive the next day, together with a profile of their new target and the usual data-dump of blueprints, field assets, weapons caches; the kind of detail Christen usually thrives on. This time - sensibly, she thinks, given how important it is to become familiar with your dispatcher’s skillset - she ignores the mission dossier and clicks on Heath’s photo instead, blinking as it unexpectedly expands to full-screen. It’s a head and shoulders picture with something of the defiant quality of a mugshot: sun-bleached brown hair, watchful eyes, a set of the jaw that promises trouble. 

Christen wonders if she’s projecting, but after reading the woman’s file she’s not so sure. A stint in juvie, high-school All American, scholarship athlete, marines, Distinguished Service Medal; weapons preferences neatly alphabetised from Beretta to Glock to an impressive array of the M-class rifles; the usual krav maga and taekwondo. Vaccinations up to date, evasive driving certificates, five minute mile. No family.

There’s a lot to be said for finishing a mission, wiping one more drug runner or bad cop or trafficker off the streets or cutting off the head of a gang, but Christen always loves the  _ possibility  _ of beginnings. There’s something almost artistic about assembling a plan from the bones out, as it were; constructive, the way she had felt about medicine before the violence soured it for her. She pours a glass of good red wine as her printer hums away and then curls up on the couch, papers spread out around her like a collapsed house of cards. Of course, until she meets Heath, there’s only so much she can do. Christen gets familiar with the facts and the framework, but she won’t know how they fit together until she can speak to the other woman; get a sense of her, work out her limits, both the ones she’ll admit and the ones Christen needs to diagnose. And that could be a problem.

‘I saw Heath climb that building once,’ Kelley had said on a familiarization stakeout, gesturing with a fistful of popcorn from the safety of the hire car. 

‘Kelley, that’s City Hall.’

‘Yup.’ The dispatcher popped the ‘p’ with audible satisfaction. ‘We were meant to go in through the fire escape, switch the target’s medication and be gone before he got back from his presser. Ten minutes, in and out.’

‘And what happened?’ 

‘There was a fire.’ 

‘Did you _ start _ a fire?’

‘It wounds me that you would think so. No. Complete coincidence, but the fire escape was suddenly rammed and so were the internal exits, so Tobin climbed the first two floors like a fucking ladder, swapped the pills and strolled out the front door with everyone else. He got his heart attack a week later and the city got a DA who wasn’t on the take.’

‘That’s insane.’ 

‘That’s three-dimensional thinking.’ Kelley sighed wistfully. ‘I mean, I know I have my moments, but Heath is so damn good. It’s like her body will just do whatever she needs it to.’

Privately, Christen still thinks it was insane, but she can’t deny being a little bit interested to see it in action.

It’s well into the evening by the time she finishes her reading, and she contemplates leaving it until tomorrow to make contact. Her glass had somehow topped itself up once or twice and she can feel the alcohol bubble through her, warm and pleasant,  _ distracting _ . She should really be sober for a meet. Becky would kill her.

But, in what Christen will later recognize as the first symptom of her absolute  _ stupidity  _ where Heath is concerned, she just checks and double checks the number and types out her handshake phrase. 

_ Could you pick up some kale on the way? _

It takes a minute for the three dots to appear, and then:

_ They don’t have any but I got spinach.  _

And, five seconds later:

_ 21.30, The Green Road. _

\---

The Green Road turns out to be a bar. Given the name, Christen has premonitions of Celtic font and being forced to drink Guinness, but it’s perfectly normal, if slightly too dark, which just makes it perfect. She doesn’t see Heath on her first casual glance around, so she heads for a drink, debating how much more alcohol she can manage before it really is unprofessional.

‘This round is on Becky for making me think about kale.’

She doesn’t even notice the woman slide onto the stool next to her, which is either a good sign, or a horrible indictment of Christen’s own field skills. It’s also, possibly, a reminder that Christen -  _ this  _ Christen - is not used to pretty girls buying her drinks, because for a heart-stopping moment, that’s what it feels like: she sees dark jeans and a dark jacket and a fall of beautiful hair and a  _ smile,  _ and, well, fuck.

Smart Christen, thinking Christen, Christen who arranges assassinations for a living, manages to smile back coolly. ‘Rather you expense it than me.’

‘Just for that, I really want to try.’ It’s been about seven seconds and Christen has already decided that Heath is one of the most attractive people she’s ever met, in the literal sense of the word; in person, she has the kind of open, intense face that makes you want to watch her. Christen is so struck by it that she almost misses the hand extended between them. ‘Tobin.’

‘Christen.’

‘Pleasure. What’ll you have?’

Christen studies the bottles on the other side of the bar and reasons that it wouldn’t hurt to let her hair down a little further; it’s only an initial meet, after all. ‘Gin, I think.’

‘Single?’

‘You could wait until you’ve at least bought me the drink.’

That earns her a laugh, warm and somehow unexpected. ‘Noted. Grab a table, I won’t be a minute.’

Christen grabs her bag and winds her way to the back. It’s reasonably busy and a good level of loud, so they can talk without worrying about being overheard. Christen doesn’t have a surveillance background, but she’s been in the game long enough to note automatically that it looks like a safe crowd: chatty groups of college students and coworkers and girlfriends, absorbed with each other, paying no attention to anyone outside their circle. No one gets hurt today.

‘Two  _ doubles.’  _ Tobin collapses into the facing chair with a sigh and a grin, like it’s the first moment she’s been off her feet all day. ‘You know, I was starting to think we’d never meet.’

Christen feels herself preen a little bit. It’s a nice thought, that Tobin had been curious about her too. ‘Is that right?’

‘I’ve worked with pretty much all the other handlers. In the end I asked Becky why she was so desperate to keep us apart.’

‘And what did she say?’

‘That the world wasn’t ready for us and we’d make everyone else feel bad.’

‘I have never in my life heard Becky give two compliments in a row.’

‘Fair point.’ Tobin leans forward, elbows on the table. ‘Fine. She said that I have trouble subordinating my instincts to the whole and it’d be a waste of such a good planner.’

‘I’m not sure I believe that either.’

‘That I’m insubordinate, or you’re good?’

Christen sits back, re-establishing the distance for a reason she can’t identify, and shrugs lightly. ‘I’m the best.’

There’s a little smile on Tobin’s face at that; amusement, mixed with something more serious. ‘And I am insubordinate, probably, although that’s a very long word for something very simple.’

‘Namely?’

‘I just always believe I can win.’

That ought to be exactly the kind of flippant, smart-ass comment that really irritates Christen, because she  _ knows  _ that belief isn’t enough; if her experiences have taught her anything, it’s that there’s only so much a person  _ can  _ do to change things without planning, support, collaboration. For some reason, though, it doesn’t. Perhaps it’s because Tobin clearly doesn’t mean it flippantly: her tone is so matter-of-fact that Christen can’t help but be intrigued. 

‘So,’ Tobin continues, like she hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary, ‘you’re a doctor.’

‘In the same way you’re a soccer player.’ 

‘If only. Too likely to tear something, or break my ankle, if Kelley’s playing. I do miss it, though.’

‘I miss being a doctor.’ Christen says it without thinking, and suddenly realizes she hasn’t admitted it out loud for literally years. It’s not like it’s relevant to anyone except herself, and for a long time she had thought it wasn’t relevant there either, but it’s been true all along just the same. 

Tobin cocks her head. She puts down her glass and settles a little bit in her chair, like she senses she’s hit on something important. ‘Why did you stop?’ 

‘It was too hard to treat the effects when no one was fixing the cause.’ Christen takes a gulp of her drink, like it’ll ward off the anxiety she still feels whenever she thinks about her time in the emergency room; the hopelessness of shift after shift of it, the constant triaging, never able to save everyone. ‘There was a lot of gang-related violence in my hometown. A mix of racketeering and drug dealing, bad policing - really, just, stubborn, the whole time I was growing up. I went away for college and med school but I came back for my residency. I wanted to help. I thought I  _ could  _ help. But I had  _ kids _ coming into the ER with gunshot wounds, or overdoses, or with their kneecaps blown out as a punishment for talking to the cops. Even though the cops were half the problem.’

Tobin nods, her dark eyes completely serious. Christen senses she’s not one for redundant sympathy or empty words. ‘And did you fix it? The cause?’

‘I helped. It’s how I ended up here. I came home from shift one night and there was a dispatcher in my apartment. Emily.’

‘Emily?  _ Emily  _ Emily?’

‘That’s not a ton of information, but I assume so.’

‘She must have been, like, twelve.’

‘How old do you think I am?’ Tobin doesn’t bite, just grins, but it takes the weight out of the moment. ‘I guess she was pretty young. She’d run into trouble and her handler had vetted me as a safe contingency, so I convinced her to stop pointing a gun in my face, and relocated her shoulder and set her wrist and sent her on her way. Becky showed up at my door the next day.’

‘Giving you the shock of your life.’

‘Something like that.’ Christen realizes she’s smiling, which makes a change; typically there’s not a lot of joy in anyone’s entry route to the agency. ‘How did Becky find you?’

‘She was my commanding officer’s commanding officer.’

‘And what did a rank-and-file marine do to get the attention of the commanding officer’s commanding officer?’

‘I hotwired her car.’

‘That sounds...really unwise. On every level.’

‘At the time, yeah, catastrophically. In the long run…’ Tobin trails off, shrugs a little, crookedly. It’s almost self-conscious. ‘Well. Here I am.’

Christen feels breathless, suddenly.

Of the two of them, Tobin might not turn out to be the unwise one.

\---

_ You got a fast car _

_ I got a plan to get us out of here _

‘It won’t work,’ says Tobin flatly. 

‘I thought your file said you spoke French.’

‘I do. That’s not why.’

Christen leans back from the neatly-annotated floorplan on the table, ruffled and trying not to show it. ‘Explain.’

‘You scrub the buyer’s online presence so he doesn’t find a face if he googles her. I go to the appointment in her place, kill him, you override the CCTV in the corridor and feed it a mocked up clip of us leaving the room together, both alive, and while it’s playing I leave by myself and get out through the window. Correct?’ Tobin sits back on her heels expectantly. Christen is reminded, absurdly, of a puppy. ‘Okay then. What happens if I run into someone who’s actually met her?’

‘You won’t. She’s literally renowned for being reclusive.’

_ ‘Christen.  _ Can I just shoot him outside his building? Please?’

‘He barely  _ leaves  _ his building, and when he does it’s in a car directly from his basement. Same at the other end when he arrives at the gallery. The only time he’s alone is when he’s with clients, and even then he needs an interpreter. Unless the client is French. Which this one is.’

‘Then I should be a French client. Just, a fake one.’

‘It would take months to persuade him to meet a dealer he’s never heard of, and we know he’s going to fence the painting and wash the money within the next week. Tobin, it’s a perfect in. It’s all set up for us. He arranged the meeting himself.’

‘Exactly. What if it is, literally, all set up for us?’

That’s a valid concern. ‘You think it’s too good to be true.’

‘I just… no one is that reclusive any more, especially not in a world like theirs. Even if they’ve never met, they’ll have mutual friends. Or he’ll have asked around about this famously mysterious woman who has millions of dollars and wants to buy up the world’s stock of Impressionists,’ points out Tobin reasonably. ‘I can talk about art, Christen. I can talk about art  _ in French,  _ which by the way is extremely sexy of me. I’m just not sure about this.’

They bat it back and forth for a while longer. Christen has found that there are two kinds of dispatchers: the ones who prefer to be given a plan fully-formed and just follow it, no questions asked, and the ones who won’t buy in until they’ve examined it from every angle. Given her military background, Christen might have pegged Tobin as the former, but in fact she’s almost intimidatingly forensic. Christen sees what Becky meant about her slightly off-kilter way of seeing things, but it fills in the negative spaces in Christen’s own thinking, and vice versa. They sharpen each other.

Still, this is Christen’s job, and eventually Tobin slumps back on the couch with an exaggerated sigh. ‘Okay. Okay, if you’re happy, I’m happy. You’re the brains.’

Christen can’t help but smile back. ‘And you, apparently, always win.’

It’s three days until the appointment, and they spend most of it in Tobin’s living room. It’s sparse, to say the least. There are nice hardwood floors and plenty of space to spread out files, and more importantly plenty of space for Tobin to roam around and expend her apparently boundless energy while they rehearse every detail, but that’s really where the creature comforts end. 

‘Tobin, are you aware you only have two mugs?’

‘I don’t drink coffee after 3pm.’

‘And…’

‘...and so I only need one mug for the morning and one for lunchtime. I’m not a barbarian, Christen. I can wash up.’

‘Don’t you ever have people over? Visitors?’

‘Like who?’ It’s a genuine question, thoughtless, but Tobin seems to realize a split-second later how it sounds. She shrugs, probably aiming for nonchalant but not quite missing defensive. ‘Chris, I spend half my time travelling and the other half prepping jobs, and the rest of the time I sleep. Alone, before you ask. Mostly.’

Christen doesn’t back down, although she can feel her cheeks flame. ‘It’s like you barely live here. You need, like, cushions. House plants.’

‘Once this is over, how about you take me to Pottery Barn and I’ll promise to spend my entire cut on vases and throw pillows.’

‘And mugs.’

‘And a whole roster of mugs.’

Despite how spartan the surroundings are, it’s so weirdly easy to be there, at least mostly. On another level, it’s extremely bad for Christen’s blood pressure. The first morning, she arrives slightly ahead of schedule and almost trips over her own feet as Tobin opens the door in a sports bra and joggers, skin gleaming, holding a bottle of ice water to the back of her neck and clearly unaware of the way it sends rivulets down the fine muscles of her shoulders. For a solid minute, all Christen can think about is abs. The next day she arrives even earlier, half wondering if she might catch her mid-workout, but instead Tobin looks barely awake. She waves Christen into the room, glasses perched on her nose, and doesn’t say a word until she’s filled both mugs with joltingly strong coffee. 

It comes as a surprise, knowing her work, knowing her history, but Tobin laughs easily. 

Christen finds herself chasing it. It’s all part of that same open, unforced attractiveness she’d noticed almost immediately, but further acquaintance has meant she knows exactly what she’s looking for, exactly what she wants to see, like glints of gold in a lake: she wants to make Tobin wrinkle her nose, and sweep her hair over her shoulder, and smile in the way that makes her look almost lit up from the inside. Logically, Christen knows it’s frivolous, and frankly unworthy of herself, and probably unprofessional to the point of being dangerous. She doesn’t stop, though, partly because it’s addictive and partly because it never disturbs Tobin’s cool, unruffled quality. It’s not cocky, exactly, because she’s not drawing attention to it. It just  _ is.  _ Tobin is talented in the same way she has brown eyes, or freckles on her forearms, or can’t function without coffee. She exudes the calm self-assurance of someone who is very competent and knows it.

She makes it easy to feel like everything will be okay.

\---

It goes smoothly, at first. 

There’s no need for Christen to be on scene, so she waits in the car, parked a safe distance away in an underground lot with lots of exits. She settles behind the tinted windows of the back seat with her paraphernalia and watches the dot that is Tobin move on the onscreen map. She sees her enter the gallery by the private side entrance, pause in the reception area for the security checks they’d known were coming, and move towards the private office space at the back of the building. Breaking and entering the online systems hadn’t been much of a challenge for Christen’s contacts, and the CCTV feed plays harmlessly on her second laptop. Tobin moves from camera to camera on schedule, her earpiece picking up her conversation with the target as they stroll through the galleries. Christen’s French is rusty at best, but Tobin sounds relaxed, in her element.

The sound fades as the door of the target’s office closes behind her. Christen had anticipated that - he’s famously paranoid, exactly the type to live inside a Faraday cage - and Tobin hadn’t been worried about the possibility of being left without support. Being alone in a room with a target is her territory. Christen won’t get ears back until the moment Tobin opens the door to leave, and that’s okay.

Except. 

Except she doesn’t come out. Christen stares at the screen, poised to cue the fake footage and give Tobin the cover she needs to get into the corridor unseen, but nothing happens. The door doesn’t open. Ten minutes pass, then twenty, then  _ thirty.  _ They’d talked about how long to wait to make it seem like a legitimate appointment, but this is way out of scope. Something is wrong. 

She’s so wrapped up in the CCTV pictures that she doesn’t even notice the GPS window blinking at her until the door opens and Tobin slides into the car. 

‘What the  _ fuck,  _ Tobin?!’

‘He had friends,’ says Tobin briefly.

‘You nearly gave me a heart attack. What happened? Why didn’t you leave like we planned?’ Christen slams the laptops shut and scrambles for the driver’s seat. ‘We  _ talked  _ about this. If there was anyone else in there, you were supposed to play it straight.’

‘I recognised them.’ There’s an unfamiliar strain in Tobin’s voice. ‘From the blacklist. Two of his fences and a contact from inside the organisation. Four hits for the price of one, Chris. Worth a little change of plan.’

She sounds distant, suddenly, and Christen glances over just as she’s about to move off. Then she does a double-take, because Tobin’s hands are pressed tightly against her jacket pocket, and blood is seeping between her fingers.

_ ‘Jesus -’ _

‘It’s fine. Bullet’s still in there but it looks worse than it is.’

‘Tobin, I don’t have time not to trust you and if you need a surgeon you have to tell me right now.’

‘I don’t need a surgeon. I need you.’

Christen stares at her, trying and failing to think of a friendly local hospital where they won’t call the cops. Tobin meets her gaze steadily, but her breathing is getting uneven and her eyes are glassy, and Christen makes up her mind. She slams the car in drive. ‘Keep your hands there and press down, as hard as you can stand. Then press harder.’

Tobin’s apartment is closer, but not by much, and she doesn’t seem to own a breadknife let alone surgical needles. Christen drives too fast to her own building and prays her neighbors are all busy with dinner. ‘Can you walk?’

‘Well, I climbed out of a second-storey window.’ Tobin must see something in Christen’s eyes that worries her, because she follows her up the stairwell and into the apartment in silence. It would be welcome but it just fills Christen’s ears with the sound of Tobin’s breathing, harsh and hitching, and it’s almost a relief when she speaks again. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean -’

‘Shut up. Just shut the  _ fuck  _ up. There is a bullet in your abdomen which I now have to fix, and you can scream if you have to but you  _ will not fucking talk to me.’ _

‘Chris -’

‘Not a goddamn word, Heath.’

Tobin holds up a hand pacifyingly. The other hand is still clamped to her side. ‘Okay. Okay. I get it. Just tell me what to do.’

‘Wait there.’

Christen seizes a clean cloth and the antibacterial spray and scrubs every inch of the kitchen table, nodding back towards it as she moves to wash her hands and forearms. ‘Lie down. Keep applying as much pressure as you can and don’t move your hand until I say.’

When she turns back from the sink, skin tingling, Tobin has hoisted herself up to sit on the table. When Christen comes back from the bathroom with the emergency kit, she’s managed to swing her legs around and is in the process of lowering herself down onto her back, gingerly, sweat beading at her temples. 

‘Good,’ says Christen, aware that she still sounds angry. She  _ is _ still angry. ‘Now, move your hand. It’s going to hurt.’

‘It already hurts.’

‘You’ll need something to bite down on when I take the bullet out.’

‘If I bite off my tongue you won’t have to hear me talk.’

‘Don’t fucking tempt me.’

Tobin is quiet after that, so much so that Christen finds her eyes darting up to make sure she hasn’t passed out. She’s clearly in shock, but that’s normal, and she was actually right that it looks worse than it is: the bullet is lodged by her rib but the bone doesn’t look cracked, and it somehow missed the cluster of precious, vulnerable organs just beneath the skin. Not a direct hit, maybe, a ricochet or passthrough. She was lucky. They were lucky. 

Or, thinks Christen, still simmering, she was  _ stupid.  _

Tobin slams a hand on the table when the bullet comes out and hisses at the sting as Christen cleans the wound, but nothing extreme enough to alarm Christen. She treated so many trauma injuries in her past life that the next steps are almost automatic; it’s reassuring, even, to clean up the blood and sterilize everything and begin the rhythmic process of stitching the wound closed. A fresh bandage, gauze, tape. Fixed.

Eventually she’s finished. It’s over. Christen flexes her fingers, sitting down heavily on the nearest chair, only now realizing how much her back aches from hunching over the injury site. Tobin exhales harshly and swipes over her face with shaking hands, but not before Christen notices tear tracks running down her temples and into her hair. It leaves her skin streaked with red.

‘What?’

‘You’ve still got -’ Christen gestures once, then realizes the futility of it. ‘Wait there a second.’

She waits for the wisecrack -  _ yes ma’am, wouldn’t dare move, not like I’ve got anywhere better to be _ \- but Tobin just nods, drained, eyes following Christen to the kitchen sink. Christen turns the tap on full and sticks her hands under the stream, horribly compelled as she watches the blood curl into the water like wisps of smoke. Only when it’s all gone does she wet a clean dishtowel and fill a bowl and bring them both back to her chair. 

‘I can do that.’

‘Just… don’t, okay? Just stop.’

Tobin flinches at the first stroke of the cloth on her face, but then she sighs and almost deflates. Christen  rinses the red away, briskly at first, clinically, watching the water drip down the contours of cheek and jaw. There’s something peaceful about it, even domestic. A settling, after all the frantic energy.

‘I should go.’

‘You  _ are  _ kidding.’ Christen dumps the cloth in the bowl and stares incredulously at the girl on the table. ‘No way. I want to monitor you overnight. You might still develop an infection.’ More to the point, she can’t bear the idea of her leaving like this. 

She finds Tobin a clean t-shirt and her softest sweats and is relieved to see her walk to the bathroom under her own steam, cautious of herself but managing. When she comes out, she looks softer and somehow familiar; like it’s normal to see her like this, barefoot and delicate, long after dark. Christen pushes that feeling down and rummages through the kit for a handful of pills, just a couple of painkillers and something to stave off infection. ‘Here.’ 

‘Thanks.’ Tobin tentatively holds out the ruined shirt; tailored, expensive, the perfect costume, now stiff with dried blood. It’s lucky Christen has a woodburner. ‘Christen.’

‘What.’

‘I’m really sorry you had to do that.’

Christen is about to snap at her, again, but suddenly she doesn’t have enough adrenaline left to be angry. She’s just worn out, and kind of wants to cry. ‘You should get off your feet.’

‘Is there anything -’

‘I’ll take care of this.’ She rests a hand gently on Tobin’s shoulder, nudging her towards the bedroom; a truce. ‘Lie down. I'll be done soon.’ 

\---

‘It was a good plan,’ says Tobin softly, her voice low and rough enough that it blooms out of the dark instead of startling her. 

Christen can’t sleep - she knows Tobin hasn’t either - and she replies even though she’s pretty sure they’re too tired to have this conversation. ‘You think that’s why I was mad?’

‘Isn’t it?’ 

Christen doesn’t correct her immediately. She hasn’t lain next to another person like this for a long time and she’s hyper-aware of how it feels to be so close; the warmth of the other woman’s body, the fact that she could touch her just by reaching out her hand. How much she wants to. 

‘Look at me, Chris.’ 

‘Tobin, honestly, I don’t care about the damn plan. You’re the dispatcher. The reality is that sometimes you have to change things.’

‘Please,’ says Tobin, soft but insistent. ‘I really don’t want to move but I’ll have to if you won’t look at me.’ 

Christen rolls over and immediately regrets it. Tobin took her contacts out to sleep and her eyes are wide, searching, like she’s concentrating hard on bringing Christen into focus. It fills Christen with a desperate, furious tenderness she’s just not in the mood for. ‘It’s not the fact that you went off-script, it’s  _ how.  _ You changed things in a way which meant you got hurt. You weighed up all the options and you picked the one that got you shot.’

‘Collaterally.’

‘What does that mean?’

Tobin shifts like she’s going to try to angle herself towards Christen. Christen does reach out then, unthinking, holds her down by the other shoulder, and Tobin tenses. ‘Just...I knew the risk and I balanced it against the reward. It was calculated. I knew I could get out of there alive.’

‘You knew you  _ could  _ but you couldn’t be sure.’

‘I’m a fucking gun for hire, Christen. I can never be sure.’

‘Just because the danger exists doesn’t mean you have to court it. You’ve allowed yourself to think that way.’ Christen waves her hands in exasperation, then lets them fall back to the blanket, defeated. ‘You didn’t factor in your own life. You didn’t give yourself the value you deserve. And I hate that.’

‘I do factor it in,’ whispers Tobin. ‘I just don’t…’

‘Care?’ 

Tobin doesn’t reply.

\---

They debrief separately, and Becky doesn’t pair them again.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this in pretty much a two day frenzy and was way too tired to proofread so please excuse mistakes. I'll probably come back to fix them at some point when I can bear to look at words again...
> 
> Second chapter is 80% written so come back soon!


	2. II

_Won't have to drive too far_

_Just 'cross the border and into the city_

_You and I can both get jobs_

_And finally see what it means to be living_

  
  


She doesn’t see Tobin again for over a month, but it feels like she sees her everywhere. A flash of long hair on the sidewalk, a familiar movement quality somewhere in her peripheral vision, dark eyes on the subway that make her shiver in a way she doesn’t care to examine too closely. 

Crossing off those other three names from the blacklist results in a handsome extra paycheck, figuratively at least, since the money arrives in Christen’s offshore account having bounced around probably all of the sketchiest banking jurisdictions. It feels wrong to take it - it’s not as though she did anything to earn it, except send Tobin into a room with three armed men she wasn’t expecting - and she tries to insist that Becky wire the excess to the dispatcher instead. 

She can hear a smile in Becky’s voice as she refuses. ‘Funnily enough, Heath made the same request. Said you should look on it as a thank you.’ 

So that’s that. 

After a week in the city short-circuiting every time she sees a brunette, Christen spends most of the windfall on a first-class flight to Hawaii and a fortnight lying on the private beach of a five-star hotel. Or, more precisely, three days lying on the beach and the rest of the time trying each tourist activity in succession so that she stops _thinking_ so much.

She plays golf, which she hates, and imagines Tobin lying on the couch in that huge, bare apartment; wonders what she’s doing with all that restless, inventive energy now that she’s - please god - resting her injury.

She paddle-boards, and wonders what on earth Tobin spends her fees on, since it’s evidently not _stuff._ She has nice clothes, and clearly goes to a good hairdresser, and that first day in the bar she’d been wearing a surprisingly flashy watch on her right wrist. On the job, she’d barely needed the pack of cheat sheets Christen had painstakingly assembled and catalogued thematically by style and then alphabetically by artist, so maybe she really does buy art. Or, given the lack of kitchen equipment, maybe she just eats out a lot.

Christen’s conscious brain catches up to that particular phrasing and promptly makes her fall off her board. 

She slips between five hundred dollar sheets on a bed the size of a house, and makes nightly attempts to work out exactly what she thinks about it all. The thing is, despite what she let Becky believe, their partnership hadn't been a failure. Objectively, they’d accomplished their aim and then some, and subjectively it had felt _good._ Christen had never felt so in tune with a dispatcher. Even at the end, it hadn’t broken down because they fundamentally didn’t sync; it wasn’t that Christen couldn’t adapt to Tobin, or Tobin didn’t listen to Christen. They’d come up with a good plan, together, and Tobin had executed it perfectly until she couldn’t.

What Christen can’t process - what she knows she could never deal with on a job again - is the fact that Tobin seems to treat staying alive as just one of many mission objectives. A subsidiary one, at that. One example isn’t enough to diagnose why, and Christen has no intention of gathering more evidence, but it didn’t particularly feel like selflessness; it hadn’t been a last-ditch decision to sacrifice herself for something _necessary._ It was more like Tobin genuinely didn’t see any reason to attach special value to her own survival. 

Christen focuses on how angry it had made her, how helpless, because if she doesn’t, the bed gives her other thoughts she has no business thinking. Let alone acting on. 

And if she does act on them, it’s over embarrassingly quickly, so it doesn’t really count. 

Running away doesn’t solve the problem, which is probably a good teachable moment, but it does clarify one thing: she can’t draw a line under this job just by requesting never to work with Tobin again. There’s no point kidding herself that her regret is purely professional. If she needs any further proof of that, it comes a week after she gets back to the city, when she finds herself popping into Pottery Barn on the pretence of replacing the dishtowel she had had to burn and wonders the whole time if she’ll see Tobin browsing the throw pillow section. Obviously - _obviously_ \- she doesn’t.

Back in her apartment, unpacking a new suite of table linen she hadn’t needed, she accepts that she’s acting like a middle-schooler with a crush, and prays that Tobin’s mission cell hasn’t been deactivated. 

_Can we talk?_

The reply takes half an hour to arrive, but it’s just a forwarding of Tobin’s previous message, followed by a question mark. 

Christen doesn’t bother playing hard to get.

_I’ll be there._

\---

Being back at The Green Road, 21.30 on a weeknight, should feel familiar but doesn’t. For one thing, there’s no mission, which means there’s no excuse; Christen’s here because she asked to see Tobin, which really means it can’t be anything _but_ personal. For another thing, this time Tobin is already there. Christen watches the lean figure lounge against the bar and grin at the bartender, and wonders - even though she knows the answer, and plans to ignore it - whether this is a good idea.

The bartender slides across two drinks, which is a good sign, but Tobin signs the check straight away, so she’s apparently not expecting to need a tab. Something seizes in Christen’s chest before she tells herself she’s being an _idiot._ They barely know each other, and it’s just a fucking drink.

Tobin sees her coming, and smiles. It’s more cautious than the way Christen had imagined this going when she was lying in that bed in Hawaii, but it’s a start. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi.’ Christen nods at the drinks. ‘You didn’t have to do that.’

‘These? These are both for me.’ Tobin looks at her innocently until Christen snorts, and her posture seems to relax a bit - like she was testing the waters, working out if they’re still on those terms. She picks up one of the glasses, clinks it solemnly against the other and hands it to Christen. ‘Cheers.’

Christen takes a sip before she speaks; breathes out afterwards, slowly. ‘You look good.’

‘It’s the tan. Tacked on a couple of days in the sun after a job in Barcelona.’

‘You’re working? Seriously?’ The thought of Tobin back in action, back in danger, nudges at Christen uncomfortably. ‘Tobin, you have a hole in your side.’ 

‘One, not any more, and two, it was just sniping. I was, like, five blocks away.’

‘Don’t you have to lie on your stomach to do that?’

‘Funnily enough, they do teach us multiple ways to fire a gun.’ Tobin looks at her gravely, but she’s biting her lip like she’s trying not to laugh. ‘I’m fine, Christen. Honestly.’

‘Can you see why I might not believe you?’

Christen thinks she sees a little flash of hurt in Tobin’s eyes - hurt or maybe guilt - before Tobin shrugs a shoulder and looks away. She drinks quietly for a moment and only then turns back towards Christen, smiling again. ‘I’m really fine. I had a great doctor.’

‘Tobin.’

‘Chris.’

 _‘Tobin._ I’m not joking. Please tell me you saw someone to fix you up properly.’

‘Wanna take a look?’ It’s teasing, obviously, but there’s a little gracenote of something else that brings Christen _this close_ to backing her up against the bar.

It’s not really a good place to have a serious conversation, because they’re close enough that their arms are almost touching, and when they turn to each other their faces aren’t far from touching either. Christen should really suggest that they move, somewhere she can at least pretend there’s still some professional distance between them, but instead she squares up and trusts herself not to let her mind go places it shouldn’t. ‘I wanted to apologize.’

Tobin blinks. _‘You_ want to apologize?’

‘For being mad. Kicking you out the morning after the job.’

‘You didn’t kick me out. I left.’

‘Because you didn’t feel like you could stay.’

Tobin looks like she’s about to argue, continue the pattern of insisting on being the one who screwed up, but then she nods. ‘Well. You made that pretty clear, yeah.’

‘I know. I am sorry, really. You were hurt, and you’d done - well, I still don’t think it was the only thing you could have done. But it wasn’t a bad decision. It wasn’t the _wrong_ decision.’ Christen drinks again, to stop herself talking; stop herself saying _come back._ ‘I’m mainly just glad you’re okay.’

‘Thanks to you,’ says Tobin quietly. ‘I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have put you in that position.’

‘It’s my job.’

They’re quiet for a moment, but it feels kind of nice; cosy, even, safe in the darkness of the bar and the lateness of the hour. Christen had learned quickly that Tobin doesn’t mind silence, and she breaks it herself when she’s ready. ‘Who’s your new handler?’

‘Her name’s Carli. She’s got me on a very tight leash. Guessing you put in a bad word for me, huh?’ Christen glances back, stung, but Tobin’s eyes are soft. ‘Chris, I’m kidding. I’m kidding. Even if I wasn’t, I don’t even really care who my handler is.’

She trails off, not like she’s run out of things to say; more as though something has just struck her. Christen waits, suddenly nervous, and watches Tobin swirl her drink around the tumbler as she puzzles it out. 

Eventually she looks up, but doesn’t look _at_ Christen. ‘Why did you ask Becky not to pair us again?’

Christen’s heart slams against her ribs. ‘What makes you think I did?’

‘I asked first.’ Tobin does meet her eyes then, but her expression is carefully neutral. ‘It’s just a question, Chris. I can handle it.’

This feels important. Christen is sure, somehow, that it’s not _just a question;_ Tobin has asked it for a reason, wants to hear something in particular, wants a steer of some kind. There’s a right answer, and Christen doesn’t know what it is. She should, but something about this - the darkness, the closeness - is making her slow.

‘It’s not you.’

_It’s me._

Tobin raises her eyebrows. The light from the bar gives her eyes a strangely molten look. ‘Are you breaking up with me?’

It’s still shadowy enough that maybe Tobin won’t see her blush. ‘No. I just meant, it’s not a _you_ thing. You haven’t done anything. It’s like I said - you don’t make bad decisions, objectively. But they feel bad to me.’ _No no no, wrong wrong wrong._ ‘I don’t mean that _you’re_ \- I’m not explaining this well.’

‘It’s okay,’ says Tobin simply. ‘You don’t have to justify yourself to me.’

But she does, she really does.

‘Tobin, please tell me how you knew I asked Becky not to pair us.’ 

‘Because when I asked she didn’t sound surprised.’ 

Christen feels that at the back of her throat, like the wind on a cold day stealing her breath. ‘You asked too?’ 

‘You don’t have a monopoly on professional responsibility.’ Tobin finishes her drink and reaches along the bar to put a couple of bills in the tip jar. The movement makes her shirt ride up, and Christen looks anywhere but the golden strip of skin, just inches below where she dug the bullet out. ‘I just wanted to know if you did it for the same reason I did.’

She’s so intently _not_ looking that she nearly misses Tobin leave.

\---

All in all, Christen is really fucking cross with herself, because not only did she fail to resolve things with Tobin - if that is genuinely what she was trying to do - she somehow made them _worse._ She still thinks of her often, and is reminded of her everywhere. She still remembers Tobin’s smile, and the angle of her jaw, and her eyes.

That doesn’t make it any less of a shock to hear the buzzer and check the video feed Becky’s people installed on her phone, and see those eyes looking back at her. 

‘Did you get shot just to find out where I live?’

‘How else am I meant to get girls to invite me home?’

Tobin’s heart isn’t really in the joke. She looks unfamiliarly tentative as she stands outside Christen’s door, hands jammed in her pockets, balanced on the balls of her feet as though she knows she might be told to go. Christen contemplates it, but eventually she opens the door wider and stands aside. ‘You can come in if you promise not to cause a medical emergency.’

‘Don’t ask me to cook, then.’

‘Very funny.’

Tobin follows her into the apartment and shrugs off her coat, looking around as though it’s all new to her, like she’s never seen it before. In fairness, her memories of her last visit are probably clouded by immense pain and severe blood loss. Christen stands at the kitchen island, watching Tobin wander thoughtfully around the room, reading book titles and appreciating photos; perhaps noticing that they’re all landscapes, no people. Even weeks after the job, she looks right in Christen’s space. Exactly how Christen has imagined her there.

It’s late, and she wonders what had made Tobin decide to come over. She still can’t quite place what this is, what they are. Not much, is the objective answer, given that they’d spent less than a week working together and parted with Tobin’s blood still under Christen’s fingernails, but that doesn’t explain how fucking _aware_ Christen is of Tobin now she’s here. And Tobin’s not dressed up, particularly, her shirt loose and sleeveless and tucked carelessly into her jeans, but it hangs off her collarbones in a way that surely can’t be accidental. Her hair is pulled back, her neck exposed like a dare, and Christen wonders - hopes? - if maybe she had planned it all.

It’s somehow unsurprising that Tobin ignores the perfectly good couch and hops up gracefully to sit on the kitchen table. Christen stares pointedly. ‘You’re sitting on my operating theater.’

‘I’ll get off if you need it.’

Christen scoffs a little bit, but she feels on firmer ground here than she had in the bar. This is her territory, and there’s space between them. She has half a mind to get down to business, demand to know what Tobin’s doing here and what she wants and what exactly she thinks is going on, but instead she just picks up the bottle of red on her counter and raises her eyebrows, sliding two glasses off the rack when Tobin nods.

Tobin looks at her appealingly as Christen brings one of them over, like she’s hoping Christen won’t retreat back behind the kitchen island - but she does. ‘Thank you for texting, the other day.’

That’s unexpected. ‘Sure.’

‘I was hoping you would. I would have, if you hadn’t. I mean, I might have.’

Christen risks a tease. ‘You don’t have to play hard to get. I’ve already let you in.’

‘I thought you might not want to hear from me again.’

Tobin seems determined to see this through, not to take it lightly, and Christen appreciates it. She shakes her head gently. ‘That wasn’t what I wanted at all. Even when I was mad at you.’

‘Okay.’ The girl on the table nods, then nods again, more confidently. ‘Okay. Good.’

‘Are you glad I did? Text you?’

‘Chris…’ That puts a little smile on Tobin’s face, just at the corner of her mouth, and Christen wants to make it grow. ‘Of course. I was hoping, that whole time.’

They sit for a while, almost motionless except Tobin drumming her long fingers absently against the stem of her glass. The silence isn’t uncomfortable, but it isn’t neutral either. Christen keeps drinking because her mouth is dry - she keeps thinking about how easily she could walk over to the table and run her fingers down Tobin’s bare arms, find the pulse at the hollow of her throat, and occasionally she catches Tobin looking at her like she knows _exactly_ what Christen is imagining. A small, small part of Christen’s brain is still operating rationally and refuses to let her meet those particular gazes, realizing that eye contact like that would push them over a line she can’t step back from. But every instinct, every nerve, knows when Tobin is looking at her, and knows exactly how. 

Uncharacteristically, it’s Tobin who speaks first this time. ‘I missed you.’

‘In Barcelona?’

Tobin shrugs, drinks, then seems to change her mind and looks Christen dead in the eye. ‘Honestly, no. The opposite.’

Christen is about to bridle, because she’s already processed that Tobin doesn’t want to work with her either and there’s no fucking need to keep rubbing it in. But something stops her, makes her finally look at Tobin, really _look,_ and there’s no rejection there; just heat, and a hint of challenge. A hand of cards ready to play.

There’s a charged silence. 

‘Chris.’

‘Hmm?’ 

‘I think you know exactly how I missed you.’

Maybe it’s the wine, making her brave, but she sets down her glass and tosses her hair and steps very deliberately into Tobin’s space. She’s not between her legs - yet - but not far off. ‘If you miss me, why don’t you want me to be your handler?’

‘Because I think pretty much all the time about how much I want _you.’_

Tobin’s voice is low and soft, and there’s a roughness to it that Christen kind of doesn’t know what to do with, but also _does._

‘All the time?’ 

‘All the fucking time, Christen.’

Christen takes Tobin’s glass from her hand and looks her in the eye as she finishes it. 

Then she sets it aside and kisses her hard.

Tobin gives against her just for a second, almost surprised, but the hesitation is so brief that Christen almost misses it. All she feels is Tobin’s hand sliding round to cup the back of Christen’s neck, firm and sure, like she’s imagined exactly how this goes. She tastes of the wine, and she’s so fucking warm under Christen’s hands, and her hands are so fucking soft. 

Nothing about this is _charged_ any more. This is the fire. 

One of Tobin’s hands finds Christen’s belt loops and pulls her closer, the other hand sliding from her neck down to her back pocket and pushing, until they’re as close as they can possibly be with Tobin still sitting on the table. Christen arches into her, tugging blindly at Tobin’s shirt to untuck it so she can slide her hands underneath. It’s not enough, not even close, but her hands linger at Tobin’s waist because Tobin is arching into her too and Christen could really get used to the way it makes the muscles shift beneath her skin.

They should leave it there, go slow, be smart, but then Tobin licks into her mouth hot and dirty and that’s just not going to happen. 

Christen reaches for the hem of Tobin’s shirt and pulls so hard Tobin slides off the table. ‘Take this off.’

She half-expects Tobin to spin it out, make her wait, but instead she drags the shirt off instantly and Christen short-circuits because she’s not wearing a bra and suddenly there’s just _skin_ and oh, Tobin definitely planned this.

‘Fuck.’

Tobin makes a noise right at the back of her throat, frustrated and hungry and brazenly turned on, and closes the distance again before Christen has a chance to really look at her. She kisses Christen fast, and there’s suddenly such an edge to it, _more more more -_

Christen pants into her mouth, and it breaks some kind of spell. Tobin looks at her dark and tense and half pulls, half pushes her out of the living room. It’s not exactly far to the bedroom but they only make it halfway down the hall before Christen can’t stop herself pinning Tobin against the wall, before Tobin licks at the pulse point by her ear and _moans_ as Christen finally cups her breasts, her nipples hard under Christen’s palms, her fingers pressing bruises into Christen’s hips. Christen wonders if they’ll be able to stop - if they’ll just get each other off like this, sliding clumsily against each other, all ache and desperation -

Tobin must have had the same thought, because she thumbs at the button of Christen’s jeans before changing her mind and taking her hand. Christen kicks the bedroom door shut behind them. She pushes Tobin towards the bed and Tobin sits obediently, half-naked and flushed all the way down her chest, reaching for her as Christen pulls her t-shirt up and over her head, unsnaps her bra without bothering to tease.

Tobin makes a choked-off noise, not quite a groan. ‘Fuck - come here -’

Christen feels like her whole body shudders as she climbs into Tobin’s lap. They’re so close like this that she can feel the heat radiating off Tobin’s bare skin, but she still trembles wherever Tobin touches her - like she’s strung too tight - like any flick of Tobin’s tongue could be the thing that makes her snap. 

Need makes her restless, messy, working Tobin’s hair loose just so she has something to dig her fingers into. She’s rougher than she meant to be but Tobin’s breathing is already ragged and the pressure makes her tilt her head and reveal her neck. Christen readjusts for better access, straddles Tobin’s thigh, and moans because she can tell how wet she is, even untouched - she’s already sliding, not grinding, and it’s hot as hell and _she can’t stop -_

Tobin tugs urgently at the waistband of Christen’s jeans and it cuts through the haze. Christen scrambles to remove the rest of her clothes, her whole body thrumming with how much she wants to be touched again. Tobin does the same, hopping off the bed and standing on one leg to finish the job. It’s probably the most ungainly Christen has ever seen her, but it doesn’t matter because she drags her underwear off at the same time and Christen feels her breath hitch so hard it might not start up again. 

She scoots back on the bed so she can look properly. Tobin is beautiful like this, all the hard and the soft of her: strong shoulders and delicate ribs and the vulnerable, uninterrupted flare of her hips. There’s a moment where she just looks at Christen waiting for her, eyes very dark, and Christen wonders - insanely - if she’s shy.

Then she’s climbing on top of Christen in a way that’s definitely _not_ shy, licking down Christen’s neck and scratching lightly down her stomach. Christen can feel the slam of her heartbeat all over her body, in her chest, in her clit, roaring in her ears. They touch and touch and touch, pressure building, until Tobin gives her a last hard kiss and sits up to tie her hair back again. 

She’s still straddling Christen, but now she’s directly in the slant of yellow light coming from the street outside and Christen can actually _see_ how wet she is. _‘Fuck -_ please -’

‘Please what?’

Christen wants to tell her, but her mouth is dry, and she’s so turned on she can barely think. Part of her just wants to watch the flex of Tobin’s arms as she pulls her hair through the tie, and the soft curve of her breasts and the way she’s glistening between her thighs, but instead she pushes herself upright and kisses her way down Tobin’s throat. There’s a bruise coming up just in Christen’s eyeline, right where Tobin’s neck meets her shoulder and dips into her collarbone, and Christen wants to leave a matching one just inside her thigh.

Tobin settles in her lap and thumbs over Christen’s cheekbone, her voice hoarse and lovely. _‘Chris.’_

Christen could touch her, right here and now, feel just how wet she is.

‘Tell me what you want.’

So she does; whispers it, soft and hot, straight in Tobin’s ear. ‘You can’t look at me like that unless you’re going to fuck me.’

Tobin gives her a look that Christen will think about over and over again.

There’s a shivery moment of quiet as Tobin settles between her legs, runs a hand up Christen’s thigh, and it lasts until she presses a chaste kiss on Christen’s clit. It’s intimate, even tender, but Christen is so worked up that it almost hurts. 

Christen doesn’t think after that, can’t be anything like coherent. 

She knows she’s trembling, but doesn’t realize how hard she’s pushing up into Tobin’s mouth until Tobin lays a flat hand between her hipbones to hold her still. 

She knows she’s already wet, but doesn’t know _how_ wet until Tobin slides one finger inside her, fucks her slowly at first, _please god just at first,_ long easy strokes, smooth easy glide.

She’s already desperately turned on, but then Tobin licks her _open_ and her mouth is finally back on Christen’s clit and it’s so intense she thinks she might cry if she doesn’t come -

When she does come, she has no idea what sounds she makes except _Tobin_ and _please_ and _fuck._

Tobin fucks her through it gently, until Christen can breathe properly again, then rests her cheek against Christen’s thigh and looks up under her lashes. ‘God, you taste good.’

‘You’re a fucking tease, Heath.’

‘Mmmm.’ Tobin blows a cool stream of air across Christen’s swollen clit. ‘You hated it. I could tell.’

She can feel herself dripping still, down her thighs, down her ass. It’s like every nerve has been set off at once. ‘Come up here and I’ll show you how much.’

Christen needs recovery time so she just lets Tobin kiss her for a while, slow and deep, bodies pressed together - but when her legs have stopped shaking, she uses the one self-defense move she remembers from training and flips them. 

Tobin looks stunned for a second before she laughs, and it might be the sexiest thing Christen’s heard all night. ‘Did you just try to throw me?’

Christen shifts on top of her, maybe grinding just a little. ‘Are you complaining?’

‘You know I have, like, four different black belts?’

‘I know that.’ She trails a finger up Tobin’s thigh. Tobin’s hips jerk, her legs falling open. ‘Makes me think you like it like this.’

Tobin is so wet that Christen’s fingers slip on the first touch, sliding straight through her. Christen makes a half-hearted attempt to slow things down, but there’s only so calculated she can be when Tobin is making noises like this: a groan when Christen kisses the base of her throat, low and hard and catching in the middle, and a wordless, breathless whine as Christen slips inside her. 

She’s already close, and not trying to hide it. 

It’s easy to work her up the rest of the way, guided by Tobin’s hot desperate breath against her neck and her half-hum, half-moan every time Christen moves her fingers. She sucks another mark into Tobin’s skin, right between her breasts, and Tobin’s whole body shudders. ‘Oh, _god,_ please -’

Christen adds a third finger, watches as Tobin’s head falls back, and lets out her own moan as she feels come slide down her wrist - _almost there, nearly nearly nearly -_

_‘Chris -’_

Tobin’s voice breaks halfway through Christen’s name.

Christen doesn’t want to hear it any other way again.

\---

They forget to close the curtains, and Tobin rolls out of Christen’s bed at dawn to do the honours while she thinks Christen is still asleep. It doesn’t make any difference, because Christen rolls on top of her as soon as she lies back down and slots a thigh between her legs, and Tobin insists she’s too tired to move even as she nudges Christen up the bed to sit on her face, and it only ends because Tobin eventually decides she needs coffee, but Christen appreciates the gesture. 

Neither of them even consider that she shouldn’t stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In a development that absolutely did not surprise me, my mature-rated two chapter fic has escalated into an explicit 10k+ three-chapter celebration of my inability to chill.
> 
> 3 is half written...same time next week?
> 
> My quest to achieve fulltime procrastination continues on tumblr at de-la-field


	3. III

_You got a fast car_

_Is it fast enough so we can fly away_

_We gotta make a decision_

_Leave tonight or live and die this way_

  
  


For a while, after that, it feels almost normal. Christen doesn’t get reassigned right away, and Tobin gets a few uneventful jobs in a row, and they could be any two young professionals in the city trying to make their schedules work for each other. It starts with a solemn exchange of personal phone numbers, as though they haven’t just spent twenty-four hours straight - or rather, _not_ straight - in bed. This turns into an equally solemn request for a date, although the solemnity is slightly undercut by the fact that Tobin sends the text while Christen is kissing up her thigh.

Christen hears her phone buzz and stretches teasingly up the full length of Tobin’s body to reach for it. ‘I should probably answer that.’

‘Mmm. You should.’ Tobin’s hands settle on her hips. ‘Why don’t you just stay here while you do? Take your time.’

‘I’m not sure I should be rewarding you for texting in bed.’

‘It’s in a good cause.’

‘Hmm.’ Christen swipes her phone open.

_will you go on a date with me_

‘Are you asking me out?’

‘Er. I think so?’

‘There’s no questionmark.’

‘Punctuation kills romance.’

‘Punctuation is the difference between _Please fuck me_ and _Please. Fuck me?!’_

Tobin rolls her eyes and reaches for her own phone on the bedside table, typing one-handed. Her other hand shifts around until it’s only debatably still on Christen’s hip. ‘Better?’

Another message flashes up underneath. 

_one kiss for yes, two kisses for definitely yes_

Christen sends back two kiss emojis. Tobin pouts at her and locks her phone ostentatiously. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t read texts in bed. What did you want to say?’

Christen frames Tobin’s face with her hands and kisses her gently on each cheek, then can’t resist pressing another kiss to her forehead. It’s slow, intimate, and she feels Tobin soften beneath her. There’s so much they don’t know about each other still, which Christen the planner - Christen the control-freak - would usually find daunting, but she can tell she’s getting hooked on the thrill of discovery. She loves the thrum of warmth every time she learns something new: the fact that Tobin hums at the back of her throat when she eats Christen out, and likes the scrape of teeth on her skin, and shivers when Christen runs her hands down her ribs. She’d noticed Tobin’s casual poise the first time they met, the effortless control she usually seems to have over herself, and it makes it all the more satisfying that she’s so responsive in bed.

She puts her weight down properly, propped up on an elbow, bodies pressed close. ‘I hope you know I don’t put out on the first date.’

‘That’s okay,’ says Tobin, carding her fingers absently through Christen’s hair. ‘It’s our fourth.’

‘In what universe is this our fourth date?’

‘I bought you a drink, twice, and the night before the job we ordered Thai food and watched _Mulan.’_

‘That was work.’ 

‘I’d like to apply for retrospective conversion into dates.’

‘I expensed the takeout.’

‘There is more chance of Becky sending me a Valentine than there is of her paying for my khao soi gai. Let alone the spring rolls.’

Christen shrugs primly. ‘We were networking.’

‘Oh, is _that_ what we were doing.’ Tobin puts on her most serious expression, but she’s clearly trying not to laugh. ‘Babe, I wanna network you so hard right now.’

They go to dinner and take a cab home, Tobin’s hand resting on Christen’s thigh the whole way, heavy and almost possessive in a way that makes Christen ache.

***

For two people so accustomed to isolation, it’s amazing how quickly they fall into being around each other. Christen makes breakfast wearing shirts that don’t belong to her and Tobin watches, banished from helping because the girl can use a knife to kill a man at fifty yards but apparently not to dice an onion. But it’s nice having her there, watching, and nicer still whenever she leans across and sweeps Christen’s hair away from her face to kiss her.

‘What was that for?’

‘Does it have to be _for_ anything?’

‘No,’ shrugs Christen, struck by it. ‘I guess not.’

Tobin is clearly used to being alone, and she’s remarkably self-sufficient - she can amuse herself for literally hours with a tennis ball and a makeshift obstacle course - but she’s not really an introvert at heart. She seeks Christen out constantly but almost unconsciously, just casual touches, as though she’s reassuring herself that Christen is still there: a hand on her waist as they pass each other in the kitchen, or brushing along her shoulder, or reaching across her for the popcorn on what becomes the regular movie night. It unnerves Christen at first, which brings home just how long it’s been since she was affectionate with anyone. Or, more specifically, since anyone was affectionate with her.

She learns that Tobin takes off her bra pretty much the second she gets through the door, and Tobin learns that Christen wanders around in her underwear whenever she’s picking out her outfit for the next day. It’s not the most profound realization, but it might be the most fun. It means it’s only so long when Tobin comes home before Christen cracks, coming up behind her where she stands unloading the shopping and resting her chin on Tobin’s shoulder. Her hands find Tobin’s hips and pull, just enough to tempt.

She feels rather than sees Tobin smile. ‘Hey, you were the one who wanted -’

The rest of the sentence is lost in a sigh as Christen slides a hand under her shirt, ghosting across the flat plane of her abdomen. ‘Mmm? What was that?’

‘Groceries,’ Tobin manages, but her head tips back. Her neck smells of sunscreen. ‘You were the one who sent me out for groceries. The least you could do is help me put them away.’

Christen is pretty proud she waited long enough for Tobin to get the bags into the kitchen at all. ‘I’ll help you. Later.’

‘I thought you said this recipe took an hour to make.’

Christen spins her round and backs her against the countertop, hands skimming _up up up_ bare skin until Tobin bites her lip and shudders against her. ‘We’ll get takeout.’

Or, later, Tobin points into the depths of Christen’s wardrobe with the hand which isn’t currently snaking its way round Christen’s waist. ‘I like that one.’

‘Which one?’

‘That one.’

‘That’s not the same one you just pointed to.’

‘Yes it is.’

‘You want me to wear these shorts with a green and purple ski jacket? 

‘Definitely. I think you’d look great.’

‘I know you’re just saying that so I’ll stop looking at my clothes and start looking at you.’

‘Preferably naked,’ nods Tobin, ‘but I’m still right.’ 

‘About what?’

‘You would look great. You always do.’

She learns that she loves the delicate underside of Tobin’s wrist, the vulnerable tracery of veins and tendons protected by her strong forearms and capable hands, and the way Tobin’s eyes go big and soft and serious when Christen touches her there. 

She learns that they’re both pathologically competitive, after Tobin growls - literally growls - when Christen bankrupts her, then flicks over Christen’s hotel so hard it bounces off the board and tosses her last wad of notes in its wake. ‘Sorry, has anyone seen my girlfriend? She’s been kidnapped by a horrible Reaganite capitalist.’ 

Christen giggles and leans over to kiss her, resting a hand heavy and promising at the base of her neck, and Tobin gulps. ‘An incredibly hot capitalist. Can I pay my rent in sexual favours?’

‘It says a lot that I’m genuinely considering it, despite how much I _love_ winning.’

‘It hurts a little bit that you don’t consider fucking me to be the win in this situation.’

‘Believe me, this is definitely the best game of Monopoly I’ve ever played.’ Christen climbs into Tobin’s lap and smooths her thumb over the sulky crease in the other woman’s forehead. ‘You’re a terrible loser.’

‘I know.’

‘Am I your girlfriend now?’

Tobin swallows again, her face pinching slightly, and suddenly seems not to know what to do with her hands. ‘Yes. If you want to be. But there’s no pressure.’ 

‘Tobin.’

‘It’s not as though I’d tell anyone, anyway, so you don’t even have to decide -’

‘Tobin, stop talking.’

She learns that when Tobin is happy, her whole body lights up like she’s just learned to fly. 

***

When their real lives intrude, inevitably, it doesn’t fall apart - they’re both too intent on holding it together - but it does get gradually harder to pretend it’s all under control. 

Christen learns that sometimes Tobin needs a while to work through her thoughts. Tobin genuinely seems to be an extremely good compartmentalizer, but she does get introspective sometimes when she gets back from a job. It makes it quiet in the apartment once the adrenaline wears off. Tobin pads around barefoot, or lies down bouncing a ball off the wall, and she only speaks if her inner monologue runs into something that bothers her.

‘Do your parents know about your job?’

Christen looks up startled from her notes. Tobin is sitting on the floor at her feet, back against the couch and legs stretched out in front of her, looking up solemnly. It could be the position, or perhaps the glasses perched on her nose, but Christen is struck by how young she looks. How young _they_ are. 

She closes her laptop. This feels like a conversation she doesn’t want to half-ass. ‘Where did that come from?’ 

‘I don’t know. I just - I guess I wondered what I’d tell you about myself, if you didn’t already know what I do.’

‘You think we’d still have met? Hit it off over the terrible gin at the Green Road?’

Christen puts a little tease into her tone, offering Tobin the chance to lighten the conversation if she wants, but Tobin just nods. ‘I hope so.’

She swivels round to face Christen and hugs her knees expectantly. Christen sets her things aside and sits cross-legged on the couch, feeling absurdly like a teacher at storytime. ‘No, they don’t know. My mom died a couple months before I left the hospital. My dad and sisters know I’m not practising any more, but they think I’m just a healthcare strategy consultant who travels a lot.’

‘Smart.’ Tobin smiles, lopsided and not entirely convincing. ‘When I left the military I told my friends I was going into contracting. Which is true, but also sounds boring enough that nobody asks what kind.’

She trails off, looking a little bit stuck, somehow, like she knows she hasn’t finished but isn’t sure how to say the next bit. They haven’t really talked about their pasts yet. It’s an unspoken rule among handlers and dispatchers that you don’t pry, in case you rake up something painful - well-adjusted people with zero trauma rarely stumble onto the contract killing circuit - and it’s stuck, even as they’ve shared pretty much everything else. All Christen knows is what was in Tobin’s file.

But she remembers that stark line from page 3, the two curt words standing out after long lists of skills and experience and glowing references. _No family._

Christen waits - the least she can offer is her patience - but Tobin’s long fingers start to drum restlessly against her thighs, and it feels like she’s becoming frustrated by her inability to work out what it is she needs to say. Christen tries nudging, gently. ‘What did you tell your parents?’

‘I didn’t. They died as well,’ says Tobin briefly. ‘House fire.’

It hurts to hear her say it, even though Christen kind of already knew. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It was a while ago.’ _Before this life,_ Christen deduces, but it could have been any time; she might have been just a kid. 

Tobin reaches out a hand and Christen joins her on the floor, wedged awkwardly knee to hip between couch and coffee table until Tobin untucks her legs. ‘I’m sorry about your mom.’

‘Thanks.’ Christen kisses her temple and draws her into the hug she’s clearly needed for a while. She always wonders if she’ll ever get better at accepting condolences, ever work out how to give them the weight they deserve, but at least the banality of _thank you_ somehow makes the loss seem less real. ‘She would have liked you. She was always laughing.’

‘You think I laugh a lot?’

‘Of course.’

It’s so obvious to Christen that she answers unthinkingly. But her stomach sinks as she notices the almost hungry look in Tobin’s eyes, and what an odd thing it was to ask, and she wonders again what this was really about. 

Things go back to normal the next day, Tobin so relaxed and affectionate that it’s hard to believe anything was wrong. Christen means to get to the bottom of it, honestly she does, but she then starts prepping for a new job and Tobin is spending six hours a day trying to become fluent in Russian and it just falls further and further off her radar. She learns that Tobin is a coffee snob and Tobin learns that Christen has strong opinions about yogurt brands. They learn each others’ tells when Christen encounters an issue she can’t solve or when Tobin has crammed so much vocabulary into her head that she physically can’t process any more, and exactly what they need to pick each other up (ice water and naps, respectively). She learns that Tobin’s eyes are the exact right color to turn gold, true gold, in the sun.

When Tobin lets herself in late at night with a concussion, Christen pushes down the sadness and anger and fear and holds her as she throws up.

‘You did see a doctor, didn’t you?’

‘Are you testing my vision?’

‘A doctor who isn’t me, smartass.’

Tobin nods, exhausted. ‘Fully scanned and passed fit. It is what it is. Not the first, won’t be the last.’ But she twists her hands in her lap, fingers flexing compulsively even as the rest of her body slumps against the side of the bathtub. 

Christen rests her cool palm on Tobin’s cheek and feels a rush of tenderness as she leans into it. ‘Tired?’ 

‘Is that okay?’

‘Very okay.’

Christen helps Tobin to bed and gets her settled; she looks strangely small, insubstantial, even swaddled in blankets. ‘Comfy?’

‘Mmm.’

She watches anxiously, half-doctor half-girlfriend, until finally Tobin’s breathing evens out. Christen wonders if she might have drifted off but then she stirs, almost urgently. ‘Chris -’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

***

Christen gets a new dispatcher: Julie, smart, efficient, very practical. Straightforward.

They travel six time zones to take out an arms dealer, and Christen learns that there’s nothing like phone sex to get her familiar with a strange bed.

***

When she thinks about it, Christen wonders if the problem is that they sleep together, but they don’t actually _sleep._

It nags at her, even though it probably isn’t even a thing. Christen had barely even touched somnology in medical school, still less in practice, but she makes it her business to maintain a well-rounded grasp of the basics. She’s read about circadian rhythms, rapid-eye movement, insomnia and narcolepsy. She understands the mechanism behind caffeine despite refusing to become reliant. She knows, intellectually, that Tobin _must_ sleep to at least a certain functional level. But it’s not like she ever really sees the evidence.

It was a shock to look around one day and realize that they practically live together. They’d never actually talked about it, but Christen’s belongings had somehow migrated piece by piece into the collection of walls which Tobin unironically calls an apartment. A pair of shoes here, a shirt there, a few nods from the building supervisor who thinks Tobin is just a globetrotting contractor, and their lives had entwined before either of them realised what was happening. Tobin is scrupulous about making sure Christen has her own space, and the guest room is always made up just in case, which Christen has ceased to appreciate. 

‘There’s no _point.’_

‘Since when are you the whimsical one?’

‘It seems fairly whimsical to keep a bed made up for someone you already know will be sharing yours. Unless you’d rather I didn’t.’

Tobin raises an eyebrow, with just the promise of a smile. ‘Are you seriously telling me you’ve ever spent a moment in my bed thinking I didn’t want you there?’

She hasn’t. Checkmate.

Christen knows that Tobin has spent many of her nights uncomfortable, or jetlagged, or in danger, and even now she keeps a gun within reach if she thinks Christen won’t notice it. Christen has been hopelessly endeared by the way Tobin relishes her own bed: the way she never takes the soft sheets for granted, and strokes at the comforter she clutches to her chest, and smooths her cheek unconsciously along the pillow before setting her head down.

It’s just. She never _sleeps_ in it. 

Christen doesn’t remember a single time she woke up next to Tobin and found her fully out of it. Tobin isn’t restless at night, for a change. She doesn’t fidget. Her body is tired, even if her mind isn’t. She just lies there, perfectly still, perfectly composed, her breathing too shallow to convince or her eyes open, flashing in the dark like a cat’s.

It doesn’t make sense at first, because god knows she’s tired enough. Christen sees her when she’s off-stage, the dragging way she takes off her shoes at the end of a long day. Tobin doesn’t wear makeup unless it’s for a mission, but there’s a tube of concealer on the dresser and Christen wonders if it’s to disguise the fact that some mornings - even after jobs when Tobin has done nothing more rigorous than lie on a rooftop with an M40 - the woman looks like she’s been in a fistfight and lost. By rights she should be dead to the world the second her head touches the pillow.

The first time Christen wakes in a panic beside her, her mind back in the ER, her eyes blinded by the sight of bodies on gurneys, it all falls into place with a lurch. Tobin reacts so fast that she must already have been awake. Professional reflexes wouldn’t have explained the calm hand on Christen’s shoulder, gently but firmly stopping her falling out of bed in her haste to escape, or the speed with which a practical metal basin appears from under the bed as she gags. It isn’t till a few nights later that Christen thinks to wonder why the basin is there at all. 

Christen is strong and self-assured, proud of her level-headedness, and in many ways she is brave. But her heart hurts at the thought of Tobin fumbling for that basin during the night, and the pain makes her a coward.

_Let me help._

_Let me in._

_Ask me, because I don’t know how to offer._

_I have nightmares and I think you know what that’s like._

There are plenty of good moments, close moments, when she could breach the topic and Tobin would stiffen, soften, and talk - and Christen is selfish about every single one. She can’t bear to waste a single precious second when she could be making Tobin smile instead. She knows it’s not the smart thing to do; she knows perfectly well that she needs to summon up her logic and her backbone and her goddamn bedside manner; hell, she knows she needs therapy just as much as Tobin does. But she manages to find excuse after excuse to pretend there’s no problem, because so often it feels like there isn’t. So often, it feels perfect. 

It’s definitely not healthy how often they end up fucking each other at night for the express purpose of forgetting the day - but Christen is addicted to the way Tobin’s mouth drives every single thought from her head except how badly she wants to come, and Christen’s fingers make Tobin snarl and whine and break and beg, and so they keep doing it. 

She has the dream again, and wakes up feeling so angry and powerless that she can’t even cry. It’s like she’s splintering, buckling under the weight of it all, unable to get enough air into her lungs - 

‘Hey, I’ve got you.’

Christen reaches for her blindly. ‘I _can’t_ -’

‘You can.’ Tobin scoots behind her and coaxes her upright to open up her chest. ‘You are so strong, Chris. This isn’t your reality, it’s your brain following the path of least resistance when you’re vulnerable. You’re here. You’re with me. You’re safe.’

Christen rubs her eyes. Her skin hurts, and she’s so tired. ‘I feel - scratchy.’

‘I know, I promise.’ The room comes back to Christen as she settles: the dark, the heavy quiet, the warmth of Tobin’s body against hers. Tobin kisses her shoulder. ‘Do you want to get up? Walk around?’

Christen shakes her head and lies back down, balling herself up as tightly as possible as though she can physically hold herself together. The voices in her head go quiet as Tobin curls around her. She hopes the same is true of whatever Tobin hears at night. 

‘In French, this is called _d_ _ormir en chien de fusil_.’

‘What is?’

‘This.’ Tobin runs a soothing hand down Christen’s arm and lets it settle where Christen’s own hands are scrunched into her chest. ‘Sleeping curled up like this. You do it a lot.’

‘What’s it mean?’ Christen scans blearily through her mind for her high school French. ‘Something about a dog?’

‘Close.’

She feels Tobin smile against the back of her neck, but only briefly. Safe, and held, and no longer alone, Christen starts to doze and barely registers it when Tobin translates, softly, almost to herself.

_To sleep in the hammer of a rifle._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had some weird writer's block recently, but your lovely comments have sorted that out! This is now going to be 4 chapters which is 300% more than I expected... 
> 
> (That plus Tobin’s hair in the re x when we all vote pics. Get it girl.)
> 
> If you're in the US please do register to vote. If you have any doubts at all about whether to vote, or who to vote for, I'm on tumblr at de-la-field and very happy to chat. 
> 
> Happy reading!


	4. IV

_Any place is better_

_Starting from zero got nothing to lose_

_Maybe we’ll make something_

_Me, myself, I got nothing to prove_

  
  


‘Move in with me.’ 

Christen giggles, kind of. She’s so breathless it doesn’t really sound like anything. A small part of her is still conscious enough to be aware that this is not an appropriate response to an offer like that, but then Tobin is looking at her far too earnestly for someone who made her girlfriend come all over her hand about thirty seconds before. ‘Tobin, I can’t feel my legs.’ 

‘So?’

‘So, it’s not fair to ask me big serious questions when there is no blood flowing to my brain.’

‘And there was I thinking you were meant to follow your heart.’ Tobin stretches out on her stomach beside Christen, head pillowed on folded arms. She’s smiling, and her tone is light, but her eyes are resolute. ‘I mean it. Move in with me. Your apartment has damp, and your landlord sucks, and I don’t own any stuff so all your things will fit.’

‘Tobin…’

‘I want to come home to you,’ Tobin insists. She smooths a warm palm across Christen’s bare stomach, affectionate, not seductive. Steadfast. ‘Think about it. Move in with me. It’d be good.’

Christen looks across at the nightstand on her side - _her side_ \- of the bed: her lightning cable, her current paperback, her little pot of lip balm. She looks at the faded blue USMC t-shirt she’d put on after her shower that morning, now in a heap on the floor which would probably be frowned upon in barracks. She thinks of the sweats she’d tugged at impatiently while Tobin hovered and teased and took her sweet time, which had been slightly loose around Tobin’s hips and just a shade too long for her and definitely belonged to Christen.

‘I’m pretty sure I already have.’ 

***

Tobin’s right. It is good. Christen’s life has been so erratic these last few years, living from job to job, that it feels exciting and hopeful even to plan for something permanent. She gives up her own apartment and adds her name to Tobin’s lease. They have a semi-serious argument about throw pillows, which Christen practically collects and Tobin thinks are pointless. Christen wins. They finally make it to Pottery Barn. 

There’s still a lot of time spent apart, but it’s easier to be alone when you have someone to come back to, or someone coming back to you. Christen lands in Japan and turns on her burner phone to find a picture message from a number she recognizes: it’s a selfie, Tobin cozy and cuddled up in _their_ bed, surrounded by the pillows Christen had forced her to buy, and it makes Christen stand there in the middle of Narita Airport grinning like an idiot. She flies back five days later and they have forty-eight hours together, most of it spent in that same bed, before Tobin is the one who has to travel. Christen sends a matching selfie and then, after a precisely calibrated interval, a follow-up with fewer pillows and more skin. Her phone rings five seconds later. 

She goes to sleep that night wearing one of Tobin’s shirts, in a bed that smells of Tobin's shampoo, her brain playing a loop of the utterly unraveled sounds Tobin made as she came. 

Those are good days, and on balance there are more of them than there are bad. The problem, which it takes a while for Christen to identify, or maybe just to acknowledge, is that the bad days aren’t just that; they don’t pass by. They linger. Each one tugs a tiny bit at Christen’s anxieties, chips away minutely at the secure, settled way she’s come to feel in their home.

She’s working late one night when Tobin’s on a job, hunched over her laptop in the spare bedroom which has gradually become an office, when she feels unease prickle at the base of her neck. Call it a doctor’s sixth sense, or a handler’s paranoia, but something’s off. Something sounds wrong. Instinct stops her turning the light on when she steps out into the living room, the darkness sharpening her other senses, and she realizes with alarm that she’s right. There are people outside the door. She hears hushed voices, at least one of them a man, then a stealthy scratching; like someone is picking the lock. 

This shouldn’t be possible. The building security had been upgraded when Tobin moved in, under the guise of a neighborhood crime prevention grant from local government; there are cameras and access codes and guest logs. For someone to get this far must mean that Tobin is with them. 

But she didn’t text, like she usually does. And if she is there, why isn’t she using her key like a normal person?

Christen tiptoes into the bedroom and furrows her brow in the dark to find the hardback of _The Count of Monte Cristo_ in the bookshelf, its pages hollowed out to make space for a Glock 19M. Christen’s been on all the compulsory firearms courses and the annual refreshers, and it’s kept loaded so all she has to do is pick it up, but it still feels unfamiliar in her hand. Not quite real. 

She pulls the bedroom curtains shut, so she won’t be given away by her shadow, and positions herself just inside the room where she has a clear sightline to the front door. The muffled sounds outside the apartment continue, and then go silent. The front door swings open, Christen’s heart thuds in her chest so hard it genuinely worries her, and she’s this close to flipping the safety when she sees it’s just a nervous paramedic - and Tobin, right arm in a sling, _grinning._

She lowers the gun. ‘What the _fuck,_ Tobin? You scared the hell out of me.’

‘This,’ says Tobin informatively to the paramedic, ‘is my Christen.’

‘Your...what?’

‘This is my Christen. She’s girlfriend.’

The paramedic waves limply. ‘Oh, right. Hi.’

‘She’s _pretty.’_

‘Yeah, she is. Let’s just get you -’

‘Like, _so_ pretty.’

‘Oh my god, okay. Um, Christen, her file said you’re a doctor?’

That is not something Christen likes to hear. ‘Non-practising, but yeah. Ex-ER. What happened?’

‘Dislocated shoulder. We didn’t ask _how_ it happened and to be honest we don’t want to know. We’re only on the contingency list as a favor.’ He steers Tobin gently onto the couch and hands Christen a plastic folder and paper bag. ‘Treatment plan. Prescription. We gave her diamorphine so she’ll be loopy for a couple more hours, you know the deal. It’s all in the notes. If there’s a problem, call - I mean, whoever you people usually call.’

He looks young, twenty-three or twenty-four, max. Christen doesn’t like the way he’s looking at her, like she’s dangerous; which she is, of course, but not to him. ‘Can’t you at least tell me -’

‘No, I can’t. Sorry, but I really don’t want to know. This - situation - has given me enough to forget as it is.’ He picks up his treatment bag and waves to Tobin on the sofa. ‘Bye bye. Be good for your Christen, hey?’

Tobin nods at him very solemnly. She’s definitely high, but trying her best to be serious. ‘Thank you. You too.’

‘Close enough.’ The paramedic flaps a hand at them both and practically runs out the door. His sigh of relief is almost audible from the other side. 

Christen sighs too and takes the bag of medication through to the bathroom, lining up the little bottles on the edge of the sink while she flips through the folder. There’s nothing out of the ordinary. It was a standard dislocation, no fractures or tissue tear, a simple reduction. She’ll be out of heavy action for three months, should really be four, but knowing Tobin might be more like two and a half. Christen closes the folder and stacks the bottles neatly in the cabinet, before it sinks in that she’s not on a ward round. This isn’t someone she’s fixing and sending on their way. This is her girlfriend, who’s just undergone yet another trauma injury, who’s twenty-nine but has broken her arm four separate times, who keeps getting up and going back out and hurting herself until she’s so banged up she has no choice but to rest.

It’s the fact that Tobin’s got a three month recovery window, and Christen’s _relieved_ -

It’s the fact that she’s not _surprised_ any more -

Tobin is sitting obediently on the couch where the paramedic left her, staring quite happily at the wall, but she turns when Christen approaches and shoots her a _dazzling_ smile. ‘I love you.’

Christen can’t help but smile back. She sits down next to her and lifts Tobin’s legs across her lap, unlacing her sneakers and pulling them gently from her feet. ‘What happened?’

Tobin’s smile disappears. It feels almost unfair to notice it, to take advantage of the fact that she’s too spaced out to hide her disappointment. ‘I fell. Wait. I _didn’t_ fall. But I would have. I was going to fall, but I hung on, so I didn’t. Chris.’

‘Yes, Tobin?’

‘Don't you love me?’

Christen does, she does, or it wouldn’t matter that all that love is bound up in a woman she can _see_ breaking down.

She does, or she wouldn’t feel so anxious about admitting it.

There’s no way even to begin explaining that, especially not while Tobin is so unguarded and vulnerable and - most importantly - high as a kite, so it’s a relief when Christen finally looks up to see that Tobin’s attention has already wandered to picking at her sling. ‘Hey, don’t do that. It’s protecting your shoulder.’

‘It’s itchy.’

‘I know. I’ll make you something more comfortable in the morning. How about you get into bed and have a rest?’

Tobin nods earnestly. ‘Will you come too?’

‘To bed?’

‘I really like it when you’re in bed with me. I like having you there.’

It’s ridiculous, really, that she’s so goddamn irresistible even when she’s literally out of her mind. Christen smooths her hand tenderly down Tobin’s jaw and presses a kiss to her cheekbone. ‘Fine. You’ve twisted my arm.’

Tobin smiles, elated, then frowns and pokes experimentally at the sling. ‘Wait. Did you twist _my_ arm?’

‘Come to bed, dork.’

They get ready for bed in a jumble of laughter and near-calamities, as Tobin accepts help only to forget the next moment that she needs it. Christen undresses her, prompts her to keep brushing her teeth when she zones out halfway through, soothes her when she sits down too quickly and the sudden jolt brings tears to her eyes. The frustration will come, but for now Tobin is pliant, even docile. Christen gives her another pill that’ll see her through the night, and lies down beside her, rubbing soothing circles on the back of Tobin’s hand.

‘Tobin.’

She’s already drifting off, but she turns her head just slightly, nose brushing Christen’s chin. ‘Hmm?’

‘I love you too.’

***

It feels a bit like a holiday, with Tobin at a loose end. She’s restless, but not unmanageably. She reads a lot, follows her workout plan religiously, orders a giant box of art supplies and turns out some really amazingly competent oil paintings. She announces an intention to cook, which Christen vetoes on the grounds that a one-handed Tobin can’t possibly be a better - or safer - chef than a two-handed one. It’s nice.

But it can’t last forever. 

Christen gets home from three days in Caracas, two months after Tobin dislocated her shoulder, and her heart sinks as she sees a collection of printouts arranged carefully on the floor. Tobin is cross-legged in the middle, staring at a photo, but she scrambles to her feet as the door opens and her face lights up. ‘Hey. I missed you.’

It really does feel like coming home. Christen still can’t believe how lucky she is that she only has to reach out and Tobin will be in her arms, warm and present, even more beautiful than Christen remembers her when they’re apart. All she needs to do is drop her bags and kiss and be kissed. She treasures it, how perfect and uncomplicated it is, even if it turns out to be the deep breath before they set back out into the storm.

‘I missed you too.’

Christen unpacks and gets herself settled, before pouring out a couple of glasses of wine and handing one wordlessly to Tobin, who is back in her circle of papers. Tobin takes it and thanks her, smiling and leaning in as Christen’s hand brushes over the crown of her head. ‘I’m really glad you’re back.’

‘Looks like you kept yourself busy.’

‘It’ll be a big one, if we can pull it off.’ Tobin hesitates. ‘It’s gonna be - well. It’s not simple. I might be gone a while.’

Christen feels her throat tighten and pushes away the feeling resolutely, reaching out a hand for the photo of the target. It’s a family group, which is unusual: parents with their teenage boy and girl and a dog. The father is thickset, polo-shirted. ‘Who is he?’

‘Not him. Her.’ Tobin points at the mother. ‘I’ll have no unconscious bias in this household, thank you very much. We are all about equal opportunities assassination.’

‘Smartass.’ Christen studies the picture again. The woman looks just like a million other white suburban moms, brunette bob, curatedly-casual t-shirt and jeans ensemble. ‘She looks...boring.’

‘Books and covers, Chris.’

‘What’s her deal?’

‘Narcotics,’ says Tobin briefly. ‘Monitors production, directs the shipments, organises the sales, gets the money clean. She’s the nerve centre, but the network’s huge and it’s all filtered through different players so there’s no trace of her involvement. And now she’s started facilitating the opioid crisis in a big way.’

‘Let me guess. Intensely private and well-guarded and impossible to get close to?’

‘Sounds like you’ve done this before.’

‘What’s your in?’

Tobin grins faintly. ‘Her twins are flunking English. She’s advertised for a live-in tutor to go on vacation with them.’

With her handler’s hat on, Christen can’t help but think that it sounds very, very dangerous. A house like that will be a closed environment; Tobin will be pretty much on her own, and the likelihood of getting caught is always higher with deep cover and prolonged exposure. The target herself probably won’t be armed, but there’ll be professional security, and a real risk of being trapped if the hit goes wrong. But there’s an unspoken agreement between them that they don’t get involved in each other’s contracts, so she just laughs and takes a sip of her wine. ‘Somewhere nice, I hope.’

‘Cuba.’

‘Seriously? Are you sure you haven’t stumbled into filming for the new Bond movie?’

Tobin scoots back to lean against the couch and grins up at her. ‘You would look pretty awesome on the red carpet.’

‘And I can just see you rising from the sea like Halle Berry.’

They don’t talk about it again that evening, but Christen still doesn’t sleep well afterwards. Maybe she’s just unsettled from her trip, but she only manages to doze for a while, something nudging at her from the back of her mind every time she’s about to switch all the way off When she gives up on the tossing and turning, figuring she may as well just start over, she sees Tobin awake too and looking up at her. ‘Hey.’

‘Hey,’ whispers Tobin. ‘You okay?’

‘Can’t sleep.’

‘Me neither.’ Tobin sits up, shirtless, pulling the comforter with her. It’s a summer night, and the gesture feels almost like a need for reassurance rather than warmth. ‘Do you need anything? I can go get some water?’

‘No, I’m good. Probably just leftover adrenalin.’ She’s telling herself, at this point, as much as she is Tobin. ‘Can I hold you for a bit?’

Tobin’s eyes look huge in the darkness, soft as charcoal. ‘Chris. You know you can hold me whenever you like.’

Christen kisses her, simple but heartfelt, and shuffles down behind her, rubbing gently at Tobin’s vulnerable, resilient shoulder joint. She finally feels comfortable, like she might actually be able to settle. 

‘I’m going to miss you,’ murmurs Tobin, pulling Christen closer until she’s practically on top of her. 

‘I’ll miss you too.’ And then, because she needs to hear it, ‘You’ll be back before you know it.’

***

It’s rough not being able to contact Tobin at all.

Christen has handled one operation like this before, sending a dispatcher undercover at the head office of a shipping business suspected of being a front for human trafficking. It had been two months of painstaking intelligence gathering, culminating in a perfectly-executed bust and only slightly smug tip-off call to the authorities, but at least there the surveillance had been basically during working hours. Tobin is living literally under the noses of ruthless people who know they have enemies and are paranoid enough to have her watched even when she leaves the house. Just working out a way to communicate with Carli had caused headaches.

Any other handler might have passed Christen a message, off the record, but Carli is apparently nothing if not a stickler for the rules, and seems to be taking the view that the contract is confidential and hence there can be no possible justification for any third-party information sharing. 

With nothing concrete to go on, Christen’s imagination runs away with her. During the day she has plenty to focus on, her own jobs to deal with, but after dark, she starts to dream about it. 

One night she and Tobin are being chased, on and on, higher and higher, until the walls cave in and suddenly she’s just watching as Tobin falls: the sickening yank as she manages to grab onto a ledge, the inevitable moment her shoulder gives way, the desperate rush to where Tobin lies crumpled on the ground and knowing somehow that she’ll never make it in time to save her. The next night she dreams of bullets and wakes up confused and very alone, wiping her hands compulsively on the sheets as though they really are sticky with Tobin’s blood. 

After one particularly bad night, her ears ringing with the sound of screaming, she makes an appointment to call Becky. 

It’s a last-ditch, back to the wall kind of thing to do, because it’s really not Becky’s business - she’s a strategist, a CEO, not a counsellor. She might decide that Christen is unstable and fire her on the spot. But Christen needs to know what she’s signing up for, and as tempted as she is to change her mind when the phone actually rings, she manages to pick up before she loses her nerve entirely.

‘Christen,’ greets Becky, her sound quality as crisp and clear as ever. Christen imagines her in a beachfront office, or maybe a penthouse with a helicopter and concealed elevator for quick getaways. ‘I assume this isn’t a social call.’

‘Thank you for making the time. I appreciate it.’

‘I’m glad you felt you could reach out. I’ve always tried to make a place for pastoral care, even in our, er. Unusual field.’ There’s a gentle irony in Becky’s voice which sets Christen at ease, somewhat. ‘What can I do for you, Christen?’

‘I wanted to talk to you about Tobin.’

‘Did you.’ Not a question, and no sign of surprise. 

‘Yes. I know you’re busy, and it’s not exactly about work, but I needed to talk to someone who sees the big picture.’ Christen suddenly wishes she could see Becky’s face. Becky knows about her and Tobin, in a hands-off kind of way, and Christen hadn’t known where else to turn, but it would have been easier to be able to see her reactions, ‘I need perspective.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘She’s away right now. She’s away a lot, we both are, and that’s - well, it’s not ideal, on a personal level, but not the sort of problem I would bother you with.’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ says Becky drily, but she doesn’t tell her to stop.

‘She comes home hurt all the time. That’s the problem. I’ve worked with plenty of different dispatchers and I’ve seen them sustain injuries, but I’ve never run the same person long enough to know whether that’s normal. That injury rate.’

‘Yes and no.’

Christen can’t restrain the frustrated sound that bubbles up out of her, even though she can never shake the feeling that talking back to Becky will get her court-martialled. ‘Could you expand on that, please?’

Becky pauses. Christen can almost imagine her leaning forward, steepling her fingers. ‘Christen, when you started your medical training, what did they tell you about losing patients?’

She remembers it all too well; day 3 of med school, the excitement of orientation well and truly punctured by the welcome speech from the dean of the teaching hospital, who was far too busy to sugar-coat even if he’d wanted to. ‘They said that eventually we would kill someone.’

‘Would, not might?’

‘That’s what he said. And that we should get ourselves mentally prepared before it happened.’

‘Exactly. Christen, you’ve never lost a dispatcher, but if you stay long enough in this line of work, you will. I made that clear when you joined us. You’re a good handler and it won’t necessarily be your fault; it’s just a fact of the job that if you keep putting someone in dangerous situations, there are only so many times they dodge the bullet.’ Becky pauses, choosing her words. ‘On the law of averages, Heath should be dead by now. Frankly she should never have made it back from Helmand. She comes home hurt so often not because she’s bad at what she does, but because every one of those injuries is the result of a situation that would have killed nine out of ten other dispatchers. She’s alive because she sees the hidden options and is skilled enough to take them. A dislocated shoulder doesn’t seem too bad when the alternative was getting blown up.’

‘So you’re saying, she gets hurt more than the others because the others are dead.’

‘Concussion, or coffin. Most people don’t get the choice.’

Christen sits very still for a long while after she hangs up. As a doctor, she had rarely had to concern herself with the causes of trauma; she was trained to look out for signs of abuse or potential criminal activity, but fundamentally, an injury was an injury, fixable or not. Concussions, dislocated shoulder, broken bones were just that. She didn’t have time to go into the _what ifs_ of it all. It wasn’t her job to wonder if it could have been worse.

Now, she thinks of the scars on Tobin’s body and the notches on her bones, and for the first time she feels the sand running through the glass. 

Her limbs have gone stiff when she finally gets up and pours herself a glass of water. There’s a paint mark on the countertop, when Tobin had been washing her brushes a couple of weeks before she left for Cuba, and Christen picks at it mechanically. For the first time, it’s not a comfort to feel Tobin’s presence around her in the apartment. It almost feels taunting. Like something is being dangled in front of her, but it could be snatched away. 

_What if this is the time she doesn’t come back?_

***

And that’s how she comes to be sitting in Tobin’s apartment - their apartment, for now - waiting for her to come home.

The door opens, and Christen is poised to open the conversation; tear off the band-aid, _we need to talk,_ before Tobin can smile at her in that utterly disarming way that means Christen will do anything she asks. But Tobin doesn’t smile. She doesn’t smile, and she’s so pale that Christen immediately scans for blood loss. No blood - no limp - she’s fine. She’s fine.

But she’s clearly not, and Christen feels sick as she waits to find out what’s wrong.

Tobin’s eyes are the biggest giveaway, red-rimmed with exhaustion, not tears, but in a way which suggests the tears are held back only by sheer concentration. Her hair is out of her face in a braid that’s swiftly falling apart. She leans against the wall to toe off her sneakers, and Christen wonders whether it’s an optical illusion or whether she really is thinner than she was when she left; just six weeks ago, when she had felt so lithe and strong and capable as she hugged Christen and promised to come home.

‘Tobin?’

‘Hey.’

Christen waits, because there’s so clearly more to say, but Tobin goes about her usual routine - or an imitation of it - in silence, brow furrowed, jaw tight. Eventually the watching is unbearable, and Christen gets up and approaches the other woman, slowly, like you’d try to avoid startling a cat. ‘What happened?’ 

Tobin stands there chewing her lip, looking for a second like she’s finally going to reply. Her eyes are cautious, then overwhelmed, then blank. ‘I’m going to run a bath.’ 

‘Okay.’

It’s not an explanation, but it is a step towards normality. The enormous bathtub had surprised Christen when she first saw it - the only extravagant thing in the apartment - and by now she’s used to Tobin filling it with ice or Epsom salts after a particularly physical day, or soaking while she works her way through her reading list for a job. If she has to wash off blood, she uses the shower.

Christen tries one more time. ‘I can turn it on, if you want to sit down first?’

‘I’m good. Thanks.’

So Christen stays put.

She tries to finish her page, but all she can do is listen for sounds that might mean everything is okay. Instead, it’s quiet. She waits to hear Tobin whistle, pad around the bedroom, flop on the bed the way she usually does when she’s this tired, but there’s nothing but the rush of the water. She makes it fifteen minutes before she cracks. When she gets to the bathroom the tub is perilously close to overflowing, but Tobin is just standing there, hugging her sides, one hand tracing absently up and down the other arm. It’s so unlike her usual lazy, feline openness that Christen feels a pulse of very real dread. 

She switches off the tap, and Tobin still doesn’t look at her. Her gaze is so fixed that it’s as though she’ll shatter if she so much as moves. 

‘Do you need help?’

Tobin just stares for a moment, like she’s hearing everything with a delay, but finally nods so minutely that Christen nearly misses it. Christen nods back, almost exaggerated, like Tobin is one of the kids on her ward, too confused still to be scared by what had happened to them. She untangles Tobin’s arms and slowly raises the hem of her hoodie over her head, peels back one sleeve then the other; the same with her t-shirt, noting bruises on her torso to be checked over later. She helps Tobin step out of her jeans and underwear, and ushers her into the water. She unravels what remains of Tobin’s braid and cards her fingers gently through the long hair before she takes a brush to it, steady, rhythmic strokes until her arm aches.

Tobin doesn’t move, hugging her knees among the bubbles, until quite suddenly she puts her head in her arms and sobs.

It happens staggeringly fast, and it takes Christen a second to catch up. Tobin has never cried in front of her before, let alone like this; never has Christen seen her so uncontained, so despairing. It stalls her at first, but then she finds herself lunging clumsily into the tub, socks and leggings and all. ‘Hey. Oh, love. Come here.’

Tobin just cries harder, so Christen goes to her instead. The water level surges dangerously around them, splashing onto the floor like the tide, but somehow Christen manages to wedge herself into the space beside Tobin and pull her into her arms. It’s awkward and not quite comfortable, and she hangs on like they’re drowning.

She _feels_ thinner, ribs as delicate as bird bones under Christen’s hands. Her devastation echoes in the bare space. It’s characteristic, somehow, that Tobin cries so intensely, every sob torn out of her individually the way she sometimes struggles to find the right words. It sounds _painful,_ and each time Christen winces and tries to hold her tighter. 

Eventually Tobin forces her neck straight, drags her head upright, and swallows hard. Her face is so lean, all the softness washed away. ‘I’m tired.’

‘It’s okay, Tobs. I’ll get you to bed right now and you can sleep. We can talk in the morning.’

‘No, I mean - I’m _so_ tired.’ She looks straight at Christen for the first time in six weeks. Her eyes are almost frantic. ‘Chris.’ 

‘Tobin, let me - tell me what you need.’ 

‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘We’ll figure it out, I promise. Let’s just start here, okay? What do you need right now?’

‘Everything’s just _wrong.’_ Tobin’s voice is raw, throat shredded from crying. ‘Ever since I got to Cuba - those kids - and now she’s dead and I can’t think properly anymore but everything is so wrong, Chris. Everything about me is wrong.’

Christen is honestly scared. Tobin isn’t hysterical, she’s absolutely serious, and that’s much worse. ‘Listen to me, Tobin. There’s nothing wrong with you.’ Tobin starts to shake her head over and over again, desperately, and Christen casts around despairing for the right thing to say. ‘I love you. I know it - _this_ \- is hard, but you are perfect to me. Nothing will change that.’

Tobin nods, blankly, but she looks defeated. ‘Have you read _Macbeth?’_

‘What?’

‘I was teaching it to the kids. There’s - they had an essay on it. Loss of innocence and descent into insanity in _Macbeth._ And I was reading the cribsheet and there’s a bit where he’s just killed Duncan and starting to go mad with guilt and it says, _I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more, Macbeth doth murder sleep,_ and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, for days, and then I realized, that’s _me.’_ Her eyes are brimming with tears again. ‘How could I sleep, knowing what I’ve done?’

Christen feels her own tears spill hot over her cheekbones, and she reaches urgently for Tobin’s shoulder. ‘You are not a bad person, Tobin.’

‘I am,’ she whispers. ‘I must be.’

‘Why?’

‘Because.’ Tobin scrubs her hands over her face. ‘Because I haven’t _felt_ any of this. Because I’ve been doing this for so long, _years,_ and it never touched me. Because I thought - I mean, no one would care if _I_ \- I didn’t see why any of it mattered. I didn’t - I thought I’d just -’

‘Just what, Tobin?’

‘I thought it would just end.’

If Christen had heard that from a patient, there were emergency protocols she would have had to engage. For a moment she genuinely thinks she might be sick. She’s still holding Tobin as tightly as she dares, but if she wasn’t, her hands would be shaking, and she has to summon all her training to keep her voice steady. ‘Did you want it to?’ 

Tobin just blinks at her, exhausted. Christen tries again, and this time a little of her desperation bleeds through. ‘Did you want it to end, Tobin?’

‘No.’ It’s a simple negative, clear, but then she hesitates. She sounds unsure. ‘No. I don’t think so. I just - what difference would it make, if it did?’

‘Don’t fucking say that, Tobin.’

‘It’s true, though. I’ve thought like that for years. But recently, I think, I mean, I thought, if anything happened to me, _you_ might be - and all I want is for you to be happy. All I want.’ Her voice catches and breaks. ‘Those kids - they loved their mom, Chris. They were good kids, they wanted to learn. They trusted me and I tore their family apart.’

‘No,’ says Christen, forcefully, ‘you didn’t. She did that with the choices she made. This was a risk _she_ thought was acceptable. You were just the - the instrument.’

Tobin sobs again at that, almost soundlessly, folding in on herself. ‘I don’t want to do this anymore.’

‘You don’t have to.’

‘I think I haven’t for a while, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I didn’t have anything else to do.’ Her breath stutters harshly. For a moment, she looks like a child. ‘What else can I do? What am I, if I’m not this?’

Christen takes Tobin’s face in her hands. She wipes at Tobin’s cheeks, thumbs sweeping the delicate bones, the worn skin, but it’s just a cover for insisting that she look at her. ‘You are so much more than anything you have been. You haven’t even scratched the surface of what you can be. You have so much still to discover about yourself.’

‘What if I don’t? What if I’m just - _this?’_

‘I know you, and there is so much love in you.’ The need to say it, to make Tobin believe it, is an almost physical ache in Christen’s chest. ‘You are enough. Just as you are. I promise.’

Tobin nods uncertainly and goes quiet. Her breathing hitches in the silence. She looks, feels, exhausted, and Christen doesn’t dare move, even though the water is cooling and Tobin’s bare skin is turning to gooseflesh. She doesn’t dare move, so she just holds her girlfriend, and waits. 

It might be another five minutes before Tobin wipes her cheeks and tilts her head to rest against Christen’s shoulder. Christen feels her swallow and tighten her jaw, shiver slightly as she comes back to herself and realizes she’s cold. ‘I’m tired.’

‘I know, love,’ Christen whispers. ‘But we can fix this. You’ll see.’

***

Tobin sleeps for nearly two days straight. She surfaces a couple of times for nourishment, padding barefoot from bedroom to kitchen looking very young in her glasses, and Christen is ready with tea and sandwiches and soft words. When Tobin goes back to bed, or falls asleep on the couch, Christen tiptoes around the apartment feeling like she’s holding her breath. Part of her is terrified that when Tobin wakes up, properly, she’ll just announce she’s accepted another contract. 

On the third morning, Christen wakes alone beside warm sheets. She feels refreshed and comfortable, and she can tell the sun is shining on the other side of the curtains. Even better, she can hear Tobin in the kitchen, the careful clinking as she tries to unload the dishwasher without waking Christen, and she’s _humming._ Christen sits up in bed and hugs her knees. Something about it feels quietly hopeful. 

‘Good morning, sleeping beauty.’

Tobin smiles and turns her face for a kiss, but doesn’t say anything. That’s not unusual, first thing, so Christen takes a seat at the kitchen island and lets herself just enjoy the casually skilful way her girlfriend makes coffee. It’s meditative, in its way, to watch the precisely judged sequence of weighing and pouring. She takes the cup she’s offered and breathes in the steam and the rich scent, focusing on what she can feel, not on the temptation to think. She’s exactly where she needs to be. They both are. 

Tobin slides into the chair next to her, hunching over her own mug and practically burying her face in it. She looks half-asleep still, but her shoulders are tense, and she flexes her long fingers around the mug restlessly. ‘What happens now?’

‘We drink this very beautifully-prepared coffee.’

‘Flattery will get you nowhere.’ It’s a relief to see her smile. ‘Chris. I’m serious. I don’t know what comes next.’ 

‘Isn’t that exciting?’ suggests Christen, in the full knowledge that she’s never been excited by the unknown and is being a raging hypocrite. ‘You could do anything you want. What’s your legend?’

Everyone at the agency has a legitimate identity - a legend - all set up: social security numbers, tax returns, utility bills, a clean CV that will check out if anyone looks into it. Tobin shrugs. ‘Not very specific, at the moment. It’ll need fleshing out.’

‘So Becky’s people could set you up with the right degree, or work history or whatever? If there was something you wanted to do?’

 _‘Is_ there something I want to do?’

Christen squeezes Tobin’s knee reassuringly. ‘There will be. You just have to find out what it is.’

It’s important, so they don’t push it. Christen gets on with her meditation and settles down with her book while Tobin orbits around her quietly, drifting back and forth across the apartment organizing her thoughts, until eventually she hikes herself up onto the kitchen counter and draws one knee up to her chest. ‘Chris.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Do you think I’m the sort of person that people like?’

Christen has learned to recognize when Tobin is done thinking and wants help putting it into words. ‘You know I’m not a trustworthy source, right?’ 

‘I guess. It’s just, I haven’t really worked _with_ people for a while, and I was just wondering…’ She trails off. ‘I don’t know if it was just the circumstances, but - I actually liked tutoring those kids, you know?’

It wasn’t what Christen had expected - not that she’d known what she expected Tobin to say, really - but it makes sense. ‘I think you’d be perfect.’

‘Do you?’ Tobin looks half-eager, half-anxious, her knuckles white on the edge of the counter. ‘They were good kids, and I guess it just felt better, being with them, than - the rest of it. But the actual teaching. I enjoyed that part.’

Christen puts down her book and comes over to Tobin, stepping into the circle of her arms and kissing her forehead. ‘So. Want to try it?’

Tobin looks thoughtful. Christen wonders what she’s imagining: a small town with a local hospital and a high school, coaching track and soccer, writing lesson plans on the couch in the evenings. Teaching _Macbeth_ without living it. 

‘Yeah,’ she says finally. ‘I think I’d like that.’ 

***

It doesn’t take long to pack. For now, they’ll take whatever essentials will fit in the car, and leave the rest to professional movers once they decide what to do, where to stay. Christen watches in amazement as Tobin extricates a sizeable pile of weaponry from different hiding places around the apartment, some of which she’d known about and some she definitely hadn’t. 

‘Tobin, please tell me that’s not a hand grenade.’

‘Only a little one.’ 

The cache is collected by a large man doing an unconvincing impression of a civilian, and then it’s just their stuff left: a couple of cases of clothes, a box of books, Christen’s comprehensive first-aid kit, a selection of blankets and pillows in case the motel offering is unsatisfactory. It feels strange to see their lives packed up into a few square feet of luggage, but not in a bad way. Tobin makes bagels and a huge flask of strong coffee for the road, bagging them up painstakingly, like she’s heard of picnics but never been on one. 

They leave mid-morning, the sun up and the air fresh and clear. Christen beats Tobin to the driver’s side and puts on her sunglasses ready to head out. It should stress her out to be setting off with no plan, but she reaches across to squeeze Tobin’s hand and she’s pretty sure it’ll work itself out one way or another. ‘Where do you want to go?’

Tobin’s eyes dance. She looks warm, safe. She looks _awake._

‘Wherever you want to take me.’

  
  


_I remember we were driving, driving in your car_

_Speed so fast I felt like I was drunk_

_City lights lay out before us_

_And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder_

_I had a feeling that I belonged_

_I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone_

_\- ‘Fast Car’, Tracy Chapman_

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Totally did not see this reaching 20k, but very happy to be wrong! 
> 
> Thank you for indulging me in this directionless attempt at putting words on paper, er, screen. I had fun and I hope you did too! Stay safe all. 
> 
> (American cousins, if you haven't already, please please register to vote. And please make this reference age well...)


End file.
